Side Hinged Doors Overview
Side Hinged Garage Doors (also known as side opening or 'swing' garage doors) are a traditional style of garage door that are exactly what they say they are: garage doors hinged at the sides, nearly always opening outwards. A simple and very effective type of garage door with the potential to offer great performance in security, insulation, and ease of daily use. They are back in fashion now in the UK with larger choices than ever before along with modern manufacturing techniques and higher performance and security.
Perfect for the Modern Garage
One of the original garage door types, side hinged doors are once again the most relevant choice for the 21st-century household.
- Pedestrian Friendly: With around 2/3rds of garages now used as another room rather than for a car, you are most likely entering the garage regularly on foot.
- Minimal Exposure: There is no need to open the door fully and expose everything to the outside world, just open one leaf to walk in or out.
- Space Saving: They are a highly viable option for garages with minimal headroom and sideroom, which other door types may require.
Our Extensive Range
Garage Doors Online offer one of the largest ranges of high quality hinged doors in the UK, available in standard or purpose-made sizes:
- Insulated Steel: Currently the most popular choice, featuring double-skinned steel for greater strength, security, longevity, and thermal performance.
- Single Skin Steel: Traditional pressed steel for a cost effective, durable solution.
- Timber: Joinery made solid wood for a traditional, natural aesthetic.
- Composite GRP: Low maintenance with the look of real timber.
Tip: Insulated hinged doors are more secure in all ways than single skin doors because of their panel construction and sub frame. They are stronger all round and usually feature multi-point locking. The insulation is a bonus to the security and durability.
The majority of our side hinged garage doors will arrive to you already totally preassembled for the easiest DIY installation. This is especially true if you include the factory fitted steel or aluminium outer fixing frame, which replaces the need for a timber frame and offers greater levels of weather sealing and security. The highest quality final result is also guaranteed when the door is already factory assembled for you.
Steel Side Hinged Garage Doors Offer:
- Effortless and simple operation for anyone, old or young.
- Quiet and smooth operation.
- Excellent stability and overall integrity.
- Great security on the double-skinned insulated doorsets with enhanced locking.
- Very low maintenance and always factory fully finished as standard.
- Easiest site installation with factory preassembled doors including hardware and sub-frame.
- Very long guarantees and minimal moving parts for longevity.
- Insulated door panels offering great sound and thermal insulation alongside security benefits.
- Choice of a smaller pedestrian door option to one side for frequent foot access.
- Traditional, contemporary, and ultra modern designs and finishes.
- High-quality durable external finish options in almost any RAL colour.
- Multiple window design and glazing options.
- Higher security upgrades available.
In short, for a single width garage opening (up to 3.5m wide), simple hinged doors offer a solution for easy, quiet daily access, with high performance in terms of insulation, weather protection, and sound deadening. The simplicity of a hinged door speaks volumes against other more complex door types.
Our Range and Recommendations
Uninsulated High Security
If insulation is not relevant to your garage, the current best all-round hinged garage doors for security, stability, weatherproofing, and strength are the latest GDO Icon doors. These are reinforced, pressed steel hinged doors that include many of the same premium features as insulated models as standard. Features include 3D adjustable hinges, uprated handles, greater levels of locking, and purpose-made sizing with a factory-fitted aluminium sub-frame.
High Performance Insulated Doors
If your garage is integral to your home or you simply want higher performance, look towards our double skinned steel insulated doors. Available in 20mm, 40mm, or 51mm panel build specifications, with varying design options based on thickness. The Carteck, GDO, and Ryterna brands all offer very high-performance, made to order insulated doors manufactured ready for immediate and easy installation.
Insulated Side Hinged Steel Doorsets
Our comprehensive range of double-skinned insulated steel doorsets offers the very best in durability, security, quality, and performance. We supply leading manufacturers including Carteck, Hormann, and Ryterna, alongside our own exclusive range of GDO hinged doors.
- All doors are made to measure, with a limited range of standard sizes available for faster deliveries.
- Choose a straight 50/50 equal split, or opt for an asymmetric split (providing a smaller pedestrian door to one side).
- The doorset principal is simple: doors are supplied with almost everything factory-fitted and assembled, including the outer fixing sub-frame.
- This makes site installation incredibly easy and removes the chance of fitting incorrectly (subject to understanding minor hinge and levelling adjustments).
Take a look at our Insulated Side Hinged Garage Doors >
Uninsulated Steel Hinged Doors
We offer a comprehensive range of single skin, pressed steel hinged doors from our own GDO range alongside the Garador steel range. Both brands offer doors with a steel fixing sub-frame, which we strongly recommend using to reduce tolerances and ensure the best durability.
- NEW for 2026: The superb GDO Icon steel range offers premium features normally found only on insulated doors, but at a far lower price point. They are purpose-made as standard with high-specification seals, handles, and locking.
- A wide variety of styles and colours are available in standard or purpose-made sizes.
- Many models are available in 50/50 or asymmetric splits.
- Ideal for detached garages where insulation is not a primary requirement.
Take a look at our Single Skin Steel Side Hinged Garage Doors >
Traditional Timber Hinged Doors
Some properties simply demand the authentic look of timber. We offer a wide variety of traditional, joinery-made side hinged garage doors manufactured from Western Red Cedarwood—a highly durable and rot-resistant timber ideal for outdoor use.
- Traditional Joinery: Requires carpenter skills for installation and a matching timber sub frame.
- Steel Chassis Options: We also offer timber hinged designs built into a steel chassis and sub-frame, removing the need for a professional carpenter on site.
- All timber side hinged doors are available with a factory finish, which is highly recommended when ordering.
Take a look at our Timber Side Hinged Garage Doors >
Composite GRP Hinged Doors - CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE
For fully finished and traditional wooden garage door designs without the maintenance of real timber, we offer a range of composite GRP hinged garage doors from our own GDO range and Garador.
- Fully finished and set into a galvanised steel chassis, built ready for installation.
- Supplied with a pre-fitted box section steel sub-frame.
- Available in standard and purpose made sizes across a variety of designs and colours.
The Benefits of Side Hinged Garage Doors
- Outward opening means no internal intrusion into the garage ceiling with tracks or springs.
- Open only one side to access on foot at any time, providing minimal exposure.
- Simple key control to operate one or multiple locking points.
- Hook locking options available to hold the door panels tightly together when closed.
- Made to measure sizes up to 3500mm width.
- Choice of 50/50 split OR 2/3rd and 1/3rd splits on many models.
- Thermal transmittance down to 1.4 W/m²K U-values on some thermal specific models.
- Up to 10 year guarantees on insulated steel models.
- Offers excellent levels of weather protection when fitted with a threshold.
Sizing and Fixing Sub Frames
All side hinged doors available from us can be ordered in standard or purpose-made sizes. Always take care to confirm whether the sizes you are ordering refer to the 'Overall Frame Width' or the 'Internal Frame Width'.
Because most side hinged doors are fitted BETWEEN the garage structural opening, ordering via the overall frame size is best, allowing for a small installation tolerance (usually about 10mm all round).
- All side hinged doors require a fixing sub-frame (either box section galvanised steel or timber).
- For the majority of the doors we sell, a factory-fitted steel sub-frame is standard. We strongly recommend this option as it provides the best weather-sealing, security, and durability while making on-site installation far easier.
- With a factory-assembled doorset, there is no manual 'hanging' of the door panels required on site. This guarantees quality, precise tolerances, and tested performance standards straight out of the box.
Electric Operation
Most side hinged garage doors can be electrically automated. We offer various electric operators alongside the necessary conversion kits in our online shop.
To automate a swing door, a special adapter kit is fitted. This uses a standard boom-type electric operator to push and pull the door leaves open and closed via steel rod adapters fitted to the top of the doors.
We highly recommend emailing or calling our team to ensure you select the correct package combination for your specific door setup.
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