Whether you’re replacing an old broken garage door, installing one on a new build, or just generally giving your home a facelift, there are a lot of choices to make before you get to the garage door installation. Size, design, color, insulation, door opener system – you can’t just go pick a new garage door off a shelf and take it home.
One (huge) feature of your new garage door design is the way it works. Yes; you could go for the traditional sectional overhead door, maybe switch it up with a one-piece tilt-up instead. But you could go way-back traditional and choose side-swinging garage doors. Original carriage houses used side-swinging doors. So did the original garages. But that was, like, 100+ years ago. Why should we now?
Advantages of Side-Swinging Garage Doors vs Overhead Doors
Swing-out garage doors are undeniably trendy. You get all the perks of an historic, antique look with all the features and amenities of 21st-century garage door construction, and automatic garage door openers. But that’s not nearly the only reason you should consider side-swinging garage doors over standard overhead garage doors –
Simple Accessibility
With side-swinging garage doors, you can only open one side of the door should you need to enter or exit. Your whole garage and all its contents aren’t in full view of the street. Not to mention, as far as ease of use – these are the simplest type of manual garage door to have because they’re easy to move.
Made-to-Measure
You can have this type of garage door made for any size garage door; because they don’t hang or have to be lifted and lowered, there’s less issue with the weight of the doors, which usually swing out and in on rollers.
Easy to Automate
Already have a swing-out garage door you absolutely love, but you don’t love that it’s manual? No worries – these garage doors are really easy to automate; they don’t require nearly as many door parts as overhead garage doors do.
Low Noise Levels
Side-by-side garage doors are pretty much the quietest type of garage door, automated or not. Provided you keep up on your regular garage door maintenance, that is.
Material Choices
PVC, wood, fiberglass, faux wood – side-swinging garage doors can be made of anything. You can add insulation, UV coatings, decorative door hardware, windows. Their ability to be customized is on par with overhead door customization.Now, the caveat of swing-out garage doors is that you’ve got to have driveway clearance for them to swing out into. So they might not be the right answer for homes close to the road, or steep driveways. But should your space work for either an overhead dooror a side-by-side one, it might be worth trying something new that’s actually something old.