Our full list of Questions and Answers is shown below, click on the more link to see the detailed answers to some of the questions.
They can be if they are ordered and manufactured with a proper physical locking system incorporated into the curtain and barrel arrangement. There are some models of electric aluminium and steel roller garage doors which have either LPS1175 level 1 or even level 2 security ratings, so it is possible to have a security rated roller garage door.
The worst kind of electric roller garage doors simply use wha can only be compared to a drawbridge for their opening and closing, where the roller door curtain is lifted and lowered but has no real form of the curtain being held down when closed. This means you can lift the curtain up with the resistance only being the weight of the curtain itself.
Another shortfall in security for a roller shutter door is having a weak, thin curtain combined with small side guides. The deflection in the curtain means the curtain can be easily pushed out of the guides and therefore entry can be gained.
A strong curtain combined with good sized and well specified guides and then a further system to properly hold the curtain down when lowered will all combine to provide a roller garage door with good security.
Best electric roller garage doors for security are from the Seceuroglide range. A range of roller doors developed for over 30 years now and with origins from security window shutter systems. These were built with security in mind from the outset.
Yes, they are very secure compared to any other garage door in standard form.
All the sectional garage doors sold for domestic garage use in the UK are now usually between 40 and 67mm double skinned steel in their panel construction. This double skinned, foam filled steel panel build equals high levels of panel strength and therefore properly installed, greater levels of resistant security.
An insulated sectional door installed behind a garage opening with a matched remote control electric operator will be one of the most secure types of garage door you can have.
- No handle and no point of obvious attack.
- Very strong door panels interlocked together when closed, so no obvious attack points.
- All operating mechanism and electric equipment completely hidden internally
- Various physical locking devices used on the electric motor drives to hold the door closed solid.
The Carteck, Hormann, Garador and Seceuroglide insulated steel sectional doors all offer the above and high levels of security with further enhancements possible if required such as alarms or additional internal locking.
For all the various models we offer online the easiest roller doors for installation are these:
Gliderol Series A and B Single skin steel roller doors - a very basic single skin roller door which is very forgiving if your garage opening is out of square. They only fit to the inside face of the garage opening which is the easiest place to fit any roller door anyway.
GDO ROLL 77 - The wall button and key switch electric operated ROLL 77 roller doors have the simplest installation set up with no remote controls or obstacle detection systems to set up.
Hormann Rollmatic II - External electric drive and the curtain is delivered ready to attach and lift out of its transport casing. An easier roller door to set up and with the external motor the setting of the limits is easy.
Most of the electric roller doors we offer online have been chosen for their high quality but also because they have a logical installation process and we find the lowest levels of issues in after sales with them. This is after 17 years of trialling and tweaking the models offered.
The quality and size of the components used to build the roller door is what makes the main difference to quality, reliability and longevity.
With so many roller garage doors on the UK market it is hard to determine the differences sometimes and many people do focus too much on the prices. A cheap, low quality electric roller garage door is a very bad product indeed, with so many potential points of failure from day one of use. A roller garage door has the most individual moving parts of any garage door type and therefore it will always be the result of the sum of its parts.
- Cheap curtain slats will easily damage and the paint will fade or scratch too easily very quickly.
- There is a difference in the guage of aluminium and the pain quality used and this is not a place to cut corners on quality.
- Cheap curtain slats will warp and deflect in hot weather causing problems when the door rolls up and down as the slats will touch each other too much and damage.
- Smaller diameter, cheaper curtain barrels used for rolling the curtain onto will mean very slow curtain movement, but also make the slats rub against each other more as there are more turns when rolling up and down. Higher chances of damaging itself.
- Cheap electric motors with lower power will fail faster with use as they are under more strain.
- Cheap, flimsy attachment straps connecting the door curtain to the barrel internally will often fail quite quickly and cause damage very quickly once they do.
- Low quality radio control systems can easily be cloned and will also have shorter ranges for operation.
- The cheapest and smallest curtain slats for some ‘doors’ are actually really for ‘windows’ and are from continental window roller shutters, used for controlling heat and light over windows and not for a door.
- Cheap, inferior endlocks and guides will damage too easily when they are stressed in high winds or other scenarios and fail quicker.
Put simply, there is a lower limit to the price and specification for an electric roller door for use on any garage and below that price and limit you really will be buying a product which may be surprisingly short in its lifespan…It will also cause you heartache when it fails to operate one day, simply because of early deterioration.. Then you find out it is probably unrepairable or not worth repairing.
Side hinged garage doors in theory are the easiest garage doors to measure and order.
As standard they all open outwards as either a 50/50 or 1/3rd and 2/3rd split for the door leaves.
They are always installed inbetween the garage structural opening and you should measure in several places across the width and then do the same for the floor to underside of the lintel. Take the smallest dimensions and also check how square your opening is too.
The majority of our steel side hinged garage doors now include a factory fitted steel or aluminium fixing sub frame, already factory fitted with the door leaves, including hinges, hardware and locking too.
The majority of steel side hinged doors are therefore ordered by the Overall Width and Overall Height of the doors, including the fixing sub frame.
NOTE: We do offer side hinged doors without a sub frame and some standard doors have references which are inbetween the sub frame so please check carefully with your chosen brand and model what the ordering sizes are.
Tolerances
Because side hinged doors are installed INBETWEEN the structural garage opening then a fitting tolerance should be allowed when ordering the doors. The manufacturers usually recommend 10mm all round as a minimum tolerance. So, if your structural opening sizes were 2300mm wide and 2150mm high, then the door ordering sizes would be a maximum of 2280mm wide and 2140mm high including the fixing sub frame
Tolerances are quite often variable depending on how square and true your opening is and how smooth or rough the specific brickwork or stonework actually is too. You also may want to pack out around the door to reduce the sizes for various reasons.
Floor Levels
The garage floor level is usually the weakest point for any garage door. Many of our side hinged doors have a standard aluminium threshold which of course is totally level.
The floor levels directly in front of the side hinged doors should be considered when measuring and ordering. Make sure the ground level in front of the doors doesn't rise up and interrupt the door leaves when they swing out to open.
Click here for more information on measuring for side hinge garage doors.
Steel insulated double skinned sectional doors offer the highest levels of insulation for any standard garage door and also have enhanced insulation levels using various optional components and deeper panel models.
We offer various manufacturers on our website. They all have extremely high levels of insulation, measured as a U value.
Carteck Insulated Sectional doors standard thermal transmittance: 1.3 W/(m²·K)
Hormann Insulated LPU42 sectional doors standard thermal transmittance: 1.3 W/(m²·K)
Hormann Insulated LPU67 sectional doors standard thermal transmittance: 1.0 W/(m²·K)
This door with a ThermoFrame system fitted: 0.91 W/(m²·K)
These are just a few examples and are the U valued for a FITTED DOOR, many companies will give you the U values just for the actual panel and not a fully installed door tested and certified.
There are many various external surface finishes now available mainly varied for insulated steel sectional garage doors. Most garage doors as standard will have a smooth external surface finish with either a powdercoat or laminate foil coated finish.
All Up and Over and Roller Doors have a smooth external finish for the actual material.
Insulated Side hinged Steel Doors have a choice of 4 external surface finishes as per the list below.
Sectional Garage Doors
Many insulated sectional garage doors offer a choice of external surface finishes which is an embossing into the actual steel panel itself to provide different textured surface finishes. These different embossed finishes provide very different aesthetics to the door, not only in the look and feel but also in the light reflection too, which can affect the colour perception.
The main surface finishes for most Sectional and some Side Hinged Insulated Steel Doors are:
Smooth - Also referred to as Silkgrain or Plain. Totally smooth finish.
Woodgrain - A popular finish which replicates the graining of timber
Stucco - An embossing which is mainly used for the inside face of the Sectional Garage Doors
Micro Profile - Best described as the old fashioned washboards, with a series of small horizontal grooves across the panels.
Hormann offer these further finishes with their Sectional Steel Garage Doors:
Sandgrain - A fine structured surface finish but also smooth
Silkgrain - Super smooth external finish and 50% thicker steel for the external sheet which provides extra resistance to potential denting.
Slategrain - An embossed slate structure finish picking up modern trends in the 21st century
Duragrain - A smooth external finish but a digital printing process to replicate various building material finishes such as natural stone, concrete and so on..
Decograin - Smooth external finish with a laminated foil coating finish to replicate timber designs and colours
Planar - A smooth surface with a structured matt paint finish and used for their Renomatic electric sectional door packages.
Like a lot of garage doors there are a few standard colours available at the same price. These are usually White, Black and Anthracite.
We offer roller doors from several leading manufacturers and they all have a slight variation in their offering of colours.
For the steel single skin uninsulated roller doors we offer there are limited choices and the finish is a plastisol coated leathergrain finish onto galvanised steel.
For the double skinned, insulated, aluminium roller garage doors the colour choices are vast, with up to 18 standard colour finishes, but then the option to have almost any RAL or BS colour finish on certain brands like the Seceuroglide for example. They have a special process giving the ability to powdercoat to any colour and not upset the curtain integrity in the process.
Laminate foil coated finishes on aluminium roller garage doors also offer multiple choices and although we only show the standard and limited ones in our online shop please call or email us for options and prices if you have a specific match requirement.
Renolit foil coatings are often the ones we see needing a match for windows or entrance doors.
The choice of colour ultimately is a personal thing, but of course there are some general guidance rules to also be aware of.
RAL and BS colour references
Although most garage doors will offer a range of either RAL or BS colour references you should not rely on these exactly matching another product on your home simply because different materials and different paint finishes reflect the light differently and on certain colours these can affect what you see even though the colour codes are a match.
A window facing South may well look different to a garage door facing North on the same property too in the sunlight, even though they are the same RAL colour reference.
Although this is rare, just be aware if you are after that perfect match and co ordination.
Standard Powdercoat Colours
Many standard colours are available in powdercoat finishes, which are generally adopted across the manufacturers alike so you will see the same colours with many brands. The quality of powdercoat finishing however will vary considerably from different manufacturers.
Heritage Colours
A wide range of Heritage Colours are now available from many manufacturers offering beautiful options for period homes and the like. Muted tones and softer greens and blues. Colours like the Chartwell Green and Duck Egg Blue are very popular with many homeowners.
A few doors can be matched to brands such as Farrow and Ball if required.
Super Cool and Trendy
There are many very trendy and modern colours available for garage doors, mainly in steel and double skinned insulated models which offer a wider range of colour choices.
Anthracite was the leader but other dark greys are coming through now such as Slate Grey or Agate Grey along with various shades of black and aluminium shade references too.
There are also various ‘Trend’ colours which are metallic and textured finishes which present as very modern indeed. Printed and laminate foil finishes can provide very individual finishes on sectional garage doors
Wood Effect Finishes
Most insulated sectional, side hinged and roller garage doors are available with a wide variety of laminated foil surface finishes which are a very tough, grained effect in a variety of wood colour shades, accurately replicating timber finishes but obviously without the maintenance or cost.
Fairly limited colours are shown in our online shop and there is a much wider range available. Call or email us for details and prices..
A note on dark colours….
Dark colours and black are probably best avoided if your garage faces South and gets the full sun. Specifically for double skinned, insulated door models the door will get extremely hot in the full sun and isn't recommended generally.