Bad Garage Door Materials Part 2

Traditionally most of the things in our lives have been made out of metal or wood. In the grand scheme of things that is what people were working with for a while. The same can be said for garage doors. The major players in the field as far as garage door materials go are wood, composite wood and a small variety of metals. Fiberglass is a newcomer to the scene, but otherwise it is all old school. There aren’t a great deal of plastic garage doors out there or other new materials, garage doors rely on durability, need to be relatively inexpensive to produce and be able to hold up to a great deal of things all while remaining light. It’s not something that a great deal of materials are up to. And that is why we are here. Garage doors may be made from the same materials that we have almost always made things with, but it is very possible that new materials could be right around the corner. As was gone over in a previous post, new materials are being created and experimented with every day but they aren’t always the best for garage doors. What then are some of the materials that don’t work for a garage door? We are here to lay that knowledge down. Saran Wrap, cling wrap, plastic wrap or whatever it is you call it is not going to make a great garage door for a number of reasons. First of all, if you enjoy any sense of privacy at all you are going to lose it with a saran wrap garage door. It’s relatively transparent and just like it lets you see your food when you put in the refrigerator, your neighbors or any passersby will also be able to see into your garage. That isn’t to say that saran wrap wouldn’t be the worst garage door, there are a few things that would make it a good choice if not for the other reasons. Saran wrap can really lock in heat or cold and maintain temperatures extremely well. This is why we use it for what we do, it is also extremely cheap and would cost next to nothing for a garage door’s worth of the material, however that is where the positives stop. If you have ever tried to use saran wrap you know how finicky it can be and know that you either do things perfectly with it or you quickly have a small ball of plastic. The material would also make a poor garage door choice because it is so flimsy. Often just poking a finger into it can cause it to stretch or a hole to appear rather quickly. This of course wouldn’t work for a garage door as it needs to stand up to a good deal of wear and tear. Another not so great material for a garage door is glass. Now this is something that while it isn’t perfect you still might see some people using it. Glass garage doors look modern and sleek if they are kept clean and can be a cool sounding idea from a design perspective, however in practice they are not the best idea. They need to be kept extremely clean to be at all aesthetically attractive and they can really heat up your garage more than you like if you aren’t careful during the summer. On top of all of that a glass garage door would be extremely fragile. Glass isn’t too durable when it comes to things like windows and things that don’t see a lot of impact commonly, but if you expand that to a huge sheet of glass or perhaps just sections of glass, shattering or cracking can be a real problem. On top of that insulation can be tough because of glass’s sharp edges. It will be rather tough to get a good seal on the sides or bottom or the garage door because of this. While glass can be attractive from an aesthetic point of view it doesn’t take long for that to fade and for you to be left with negatives of a rather alternative garage door material. This isn’t to say that some won’t love a glass garage door, but it is just for those that don’t really need a garage door for anything other than its aesthetic value. Garage doors can be seen hundreds if not thousands of times a day and we don’t even notice. One garage door material we might notice though would be a cardboard garage door. A garage door made out of cardboard, like all of the other materials has a few advantages, but again the disadvantages outweigh the advantages. A garage door made out of cardboard would be incredibly cheap and easy to install. You might even be able to just follow some directions printed on the cardboard and you would have a door in no time. It would also be very easy for your garage door opener to lift and lower it because it was so light. If the cardboard was corrugated and a few inches thick it would actually not do a terrible job of insulating your garage door a bit. That is however where all of the advantages stop. A cardboard garage door would probably last you about a week if you are lucky. The moment it gets wet your whole door is essentially useless as you may have seen what happens to cardboard when it is met with water. This means one of the main jobs of your garage door, to protect your car from the weather, is essentially impossible for it to do. The other problem with your garage door being cardboard is the strength of cardboard. If somebody wanted to get into your garage they could easily crumple or simply cut through your garage door in a matter of seconds. This means that your garage door is not a secure door for your home’s safety and it also means that your garage door won’t hold up to any small amounts of damage well at all. There are tons of different materials out there that people have tried for loads of different applications, it just so happens that a lot of them aren’t right for your garage door. The ones that are right have been in use for some time and while they may have small drawbacks it is easy to see why we still use them. Using any of the mentioned above materials would most likely mean that you would be paying an angry call to your local garage door professional after a day or two. If you are interested in what the right material is for your garage door pick up the phone or do a bit of research on your own and figure out what type of garage door will work best for you.