When it comes to garage door panels, they can be made with different types of material. Lots of times they are created with metal or wood, but nowadays modern garages are made of high quality plastic or vinyl.
Every now and then you may have to get replacements for your garage door panels.
Wood
Wood is a very flexible and a popular material used for garage door panels. Because of it’s flexibility it can be designed in many different ways. There’s plenty of options to choose from with wood door designs.
Wood panels have a natural, sophisticated, and stylish appearance. They can be very environment friendly and more effective than other door panel materials when it comes to insulating the garage.
You won’t need any insulating foam when using wood panels on your garage door. The wood will help to give you good insulation in your garage. One of the downsides of having a garage door made of wood is that it requires maintenance in order for it to have a long lifespan.
They also need some type of coating in order to improve the appearance of wooden garage doors and they aren’t very good in certain environment conditions like moisture from the sea.
A wooden garage door will definitely need a panel replaced after a certain amount of time, once it cracks or becomes misaligned.
Steel
Steel panels for the garage door are usually cheaper than wood panels and last longer. You need to keep the steel well oiled and lubricated, but it requires much lower maintenance than wood.
It’s a lot harder for steel to be destroyed so this type of material will ensure the safety of the garage door. However, you don’t want to use them in coastal areas that have salty air because they won’t survive.
Aluminum is a better material to use for these type of conditions, but tends to dent very easily.
Fiberglass
If you’re looking for something that’s dent proof fiberglass panels is very good to use for this. It closely reassembles wood. This will definitely help any homeowners who can’t afford to get wood panels.
This type of material can survive almost any type of environment accept for very hot areas and conditions. This is because it doesn’t have good insulating material. Garage doors made with fiberglass panels are very light so this makes it easier to open.
The bad part about this is fiberglass is very brittle and can break easy especially with heavy impact.
Vinyl
With vinyl garage doors you can go maintenance free for a long time. They don’t rust and can also be use in almost in any climate. They’re lightweight, flexible, and strong all together. The material was designed to be child friendly and when being use they don’t make any noise.
The colors made fade out under direct sunlight and the vinyl material can become very brittle when expose to cold weather.
So before you go out and buy garage door panels you can take all the advantages and disadvantages of each material to qualify what’s best for your garage.