Junk garage doors

[Pilot]

We had our house built in 1992.

Recently we noticed the garage door was making bad noises as it closed and a glance showed the door coming apart where the door opener attached.

Before investing in a new door for $1,200-1,800, I did a little investigating. Here's what I learned.

Our door has flat panels with flanges. Flanges are just bends in the sheet metal to give the inside of the door strength. They are hollow and as foam insulation fills the door it also fills the flanges.

Turns out that a steel door depends on the integrity of the foam insulation for strength.

The door was made with a gap in the flange on the top panel and a bracket straddling the gap to attach a garage door opener to. 4 bolts hold the bracket to the flange. This bracket is maybe 10 inches long and the gap maybe 2". The bracket ripped the flange off the door panel.

The foam insulation is polyurethane. Polyurethane degrades over time an loses some of it's strength, so the door gradually becomes weaker. Polystyrene is another commonly used foam and doesn't degrade, so it is a better choice.

Door folks say they can do a band-aid fix for about $150, but it won't last more than a couple years. They were impressed that our door lasted 18 years--most of this brand, Wayne Dalton, only last a few years, they say.

Wayne Dalton makes cheap doors that builders like because of the cheap price. Steel thickness on the inside of our door is .0097", or 32 gauge. Most outfits use 27-24 (.0239-.0164") gauge. For comparison, thin aluminum foil is .00051", so that .0097" is only as thick as 19 layers of aluminum foil.

One of the doors I looked at today is made with 25 gauge sheet steel with an 18 gauge, 3 or 4" wide steel strap that goes from one hinge to another all the way down the door below where the opener attaches. Much stronger.

Our door opening has a 45 degree angle at each upper corner for appearance. Looks nice. Impossible to keep the outer seal intact at the angle as the bottom door seal tends to rip it off when the door comes all he way up. I have replaced the seal and in just a few months it started to rip away again. A door installer told me today they rarely last 2 years and they recommend straight across openings.

So if you are building a garage, I hope the foregoing is helpful.

 

[scgargoyle]

Here in coastal FL, we have to install hurricane-proof doors. They are pretty solid. Mine is rated to 180 MPH winds(!) I doubt it would be available in Oregon, though.

 

[jonyyuma]

Pilot, Thanks for the info. I was about to replace a 30 year old door, guess I better not cheap out on it.??Jy.

 

[irvingj]

I had a similar problem, but due to operator negligence.... I forgot I had the bar lock in place and hit the button to open the door... and promptly ripped the bracket off the door.

To make matters worse, the other door, which had never suffered a similar fate, was also beginning to separate, at the door opener-to-door bracket, just due to normal use.

Yes, these are Wayne-Dalton doors.

I was somewhat dismayed, to put it mildly, at the cheesiness of the bracket installation: two small sheet-metal screws into the aluminum skin on the top & bottom, and what looked to be silicone caulking to attach the center part of the bracket to the foam-insulated center section.

On the bracket that pulled off, the sheet metal screws simply pulled out of the aluminum (they're pretty short), and the silicone caluking just ripped off.

What I did: I used 3/16" aircraft-grade birch plywood to increase the surface area, bolted the bracket to that with a section of angle steel for reinforcement, and then used Gorilla Glue on the whole "plate" to attach it to the door. Also used some slightly larger sheet metal screws. No problems since.

In the pics, the first one shows an unused bracket, and how it (normally) attaches to the door; the second pic is my repaired/strengthened bracket attachment.

It's only been 3 years since the repairs, though-- we'll see how it holds up!

 

[Gator6x4]

I have four of the steel insulated doors from this company:

Amarr? Garage Doors

The doors were installed in the early nineties and have given no problems.

 

[Cat_Driver]

Builders use everything they can to just pass inspection.

Toilets, tile, carpet, doors, faucets, lumber, screws, nails, etc.etc.

If they can get it from China for a quarter less they will. I bought a new house and literally everything in it is JUNK.

Slowly I am replacing everything.

 

[George2615]

Must be the week for garage door failures. I just repaired mine today. Originally my door had a wood 2x8 held to the door with 4 carriage bolts. The opener arm was attached to the wood with 4 lag screws.

Last night when the wife came home she asked me to check the air in her tires. The dash display told her they were low. This is mainly due to the cold temperature outside of 10 degrees F. I hit the button to open my 12' x 12' door and ripped the 4 lags right out of the wood because the door was frozen to the concrete floor.

I replaced the wood and added a steel plate with (4) 5/16" bolts to hold the arm. In this cold weather I now have to remember to try and lift the door manually from inside to make sure its not frozen to the floor. Fortunately there is just enough give in the tension spring to do so.

 

[simonds]

All of the door operaters that I install have saftey adjustments on them
If these are adjusted correctly , the operater would reverse if there was any obstruction. Frozen down door should stop the opener quickly before any damage could be done.
I have been in the building business for 41 years and have never used cheap materials or took shortcuts on my labor. We do it right to begin with and have never yet had any problem with a garage door operater. I have heard of many of people that have had a problem, due to the way they installed it or the homeowner just had to buy the cheapest unit they could find, and install it themselves.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

Builders use everything they can to just pass inspection.

Toilets, tile, carpet, doors, faucets, lumber, screws, nails, etc.etc.

If they can get it from China for a quarter less they will. I bought a new house and literally everything in it is JUNK.

Slowly I am replacing everything.

It isn't fair to lump every builder together. While I know there are contractors that go for the quick buck and don't care it isn't fair to say they are all that way. A lot depends on the area as well. If they are in an area where the economy is good then they will spend more on materials when building a house to sell as they know it will sell better. If they are in an area where the economy is poor then they have to buy and build accordingly. Then if the builders are building for someone else to sell then they are also being advised what to use.

When we buy a house to fix and resell we have to weigh out how much we can actually spend and still make a few dollars. It doesn't take much to sink $50k into a house thats only worth $40k. We are doing this to a house we bought on taxes right now. We know what its worth in this area and that gave us our budget. So far we had to rebuild the entire garage roof as the old one had collapsed. So new trusses and a completely new roof there with the rest being stripped and reshingled. It needs a new furnace and we are going with a high efficiency unit as well as a high efficient hot water tank so that we only have PVC vent and breather lines instead of having to run a stack or a chimney. It needs all new windows, doors, siding, soffit and carpeting as well as a new garage door and the electric needs to be redone (new service, panel and update all the outlets). The plumbing was winterized before the house was abandoned so hopefully that will be ok but we won't know till we pressure test the system. Then it needs a new coat of paint throughout the entire house and the garage needs all new firecode drywall. All that and still the house is only going to be worth $55-$60k to sell in this area. So yeah, we can save money and buy all cheap materials, cheap furnace, could have rebuilt the roof the same way it was (even though it was flawed), shingled over the old roofing, etc. etc. etc. But it would have looked like crap and we wouldn't want our name associated with it.

We actually enjoy trying new products on our own houses as it allows us to try things without having to learn something new on a customers house. So we don't use all cheap materials, we use what is actually needed and if we want to go above the standard we do but we never cut corners as it will look like crap and usually cost more in the end that its worth.

Now on my own house its a completely differnet story. I try just about every new system or material I can. I try to have fun with my own houses but I know I can never get my money back out of them. I don't know if I will sell my current house but my last house was a complete remodel inside and out and I broke even on it so I wasn't too upset. I had a lot of fun with it and it was a very nice house. But my current one is going to never allow me to break even if I sell.

 

[magicheater]

It isn't fair to lump every builder together.

Exactly!

 

[irvingj]

I should add as an afterthought-- other than the way in which the opener arms were attached to them, my Wayne Dalton doors --and operators-- have performed flawlessly for the eight years since the garage was built. Overall, I've been very satisfied with them.

 

[orezok]

Pilot - how many times in that 18 years did you lubricate all the moving parts? If you didn't follow manufacturer's recommendations, then it's not fair to blame the manufacturer.

 

[Pilot]

I lubricated the hinges periodically and there is little resistance and no squeaking in opening the door by hand.

I think it is correct to blame the poor quality of the door for several reasons:

A door outfit that sells Wayne Dalton as well as other brands says they are bottom of the line, although WD also does make better doors than the ones they peddle to builders.

All the door repair and replacement techs I talked with said these doors are the poorest and I was lucky to get so many years service. They have seen these doors fail in less than 5 years, although they say the adjustment of the opener affects service life. I installed the opener myself. I got 18 years service out of the door.

The interior skin is 32 gauge, .0097" thick while other brands use heavier gauge steel, the thinnest other brands I found use 27 gauge, or .0164". Most brands use 25 gauge steel skins, .0209".

One brand I looked at in their warehouse uses 27 gauge, but has 18 gauge steel plates running from hinge to hinge top to bottom in the center of the door where the opener would attach. WD had no provision for reinforcement where the stresses are greatest.

For the record, I did not intend to blame builders. They build the house, trying to keep costs down and unless a door fails in a very short time, they would be unlikely to hear there was a problem. If your door failed in 5-10 years would you complain to the builder? Probably not.

My builder will hear about it, not as a complaint but as feedback. We asked for and he built a medium quality home for us at a very competitive price when building was booming and it was hard to find a contractor to even bid on a house of less than 3500 sq. ft. He built it for $55 per sq. ft; the next lowest bid was $65 and they went up rapidly from there, some not even bothering to look at the site or the plans before they bid as much as $90. He built it in 83 days, ground breaking to move in. Although he had 25+ years as a carpenter, this was about the 5th house he built as a general contractor and he has learned a lot since then. We have spent about $4,000 fixing things that shouldn't have failed, but that only raised the cost by about $2.35 per sq. ft. and we got several years service out of the items that failed. We would hire him again. Totally ethical, which I expected but was reinforced during construction: I would ask subs, "How do you like working with Dave?" They all said the same thing, "He's great! He pays us on time!" And that's how he built in 83 days; subs would suspend other work to work for him when called because they knew they would be paid. We only waited for one sub.

 

[irvingj]

Ouch, Pilot! That's all the opener arm was attached to?? (That's a horizontal ridge, right?)

No wonder it ripped off! Just think of the leverage effect of hooking on to thin aluminum 2"+ away from the surface....

I think I must have gotten the "new improved" system!

 

[ray66v]

One of my best friends is VP of one of the biggest O/H door Co's in this part of the country.

Much of what is in this thread is true.

Wayne Dalton makes low end doors for builders, rentals, and cheap people. They also make middle of the road, and high end stuff.

Not every builder uses the low end stuff, but most do. Sad, because $100 gets you into a better door.

Haas makes a better door in each category, at a better price than W.D. And, they offer outstanding warranty service.

Like everything else, you get what you pay for.

There is a simple fix for the torn opener mount, go to your local door company and buy a bolt on strut, and slide it over the top of the torn one, and bolt it on with self tappers. They cost about $3 a foot. You can go a few feet, or go the whole length of the panel.

There are also stronger opener brackets available, to replace the basic installation.

The opener bracket I have on my biggest door, which has panels that are all flush on the inside, (nice), goes under the top hinge, down the panel, and under the hinge below. So, there's about 14 screws holding it on. and it's made out of 1/8" steel.

If the door is frozen to the ground, the opener can pull on it all day, and the bracket won't budge.

They make similar opener brackets for doors with built in struts like the OP's.

A word of advice if your buying a new door: Up grade the spring(s) at the time of purchase. They almost never tell you that for a nominal fee, you can go with heavier gauge springs that will last much longer than the standard ones. :thumbsup:

 

[Pilot]

Had the strut installed today. Could have done it myself, but didn't know where to find one and only one door installer mentioned it, saying he would install if for $140 total, which he did.

He said the same thing as ray66v about the springs. Standard springs are rated for 10,000 cycles; upgraded springs are available for 20,000 cycles or more (I don't remember all the options). At 18 years, I figure we are well beyond the 10,000 cycles, so it may be time to call for new springs before they break while the door is partway up.

 

[ray66v]

He said the same thing as ray66v about the springs. Standard springs are rated for 10,000 cycles; upgraded springs are available for 20,000 cycles or more (I don't remember all the options). At 18 years, I figure we are well beyond the 10,000 cycles, so it may be time to call for new springs before they break while the door is partway up.

You did really well at 18 years on a set of springs. Most standard ones last 10-12.

It is amazing how many people will go against the advice of the installer, and only replace the broken spring. Then, they will expect some sort of a warranty, or discount, when the second one breaks a short time later. :laughing:

The labor is about the same, so yes, always replace both of them. Unless it is a very unusual situation. Like an early failure due to a defect, or your moving out tomorrow. :thumbsup:

$140 is about right. My friend's Co. charges $75 for a service call, so if they put a full length strut on a 16' door, with no tax, you'd be at $123.

 

[Mace Canute]

My garage was built in the late seventies, so well over 30 years old now. The OH door was an all wood insulated door and is still hanging in there. Originally, it was treated with "Liquid Rawhide" but later I had it clad with plain white aluminum cladding. Love that maintenance free coating! Still on the original springs and everything. I added an electric opener in the early eighties, a Stanley 1/2 hp one from Simpson Sears and it has also worked flawlessly. Only thing I wasn't happy about was the bowing it experienced in the winter months because of the extremely low humidity inside the heated garage. I took care of that with a couple of cheap strengthening ribs that I screwed to the panels. Knock on wood, eh?

More on topic, a couple of friends of mine have had steel OH doors installed on their garages, and they both went with commercial grade doors rather than residential grade ones. There's a lot of small differences in them for only a little more money but they are much better quality. Goes to reaffirm what others have said, buy quality and don't base your decision on cost alone.

 

[Pilot]

The morning after the strut was installed, one of the springs broke!

So the installer came back today, replaced the springs, the rollers (Wayne Dalton uses cheapie plastic rollers) and the bearings the rod that holds the springs ride on.

Works better than new!

Total cost was about 1/3 the cost of a new door. If the repair lasts 5 years, I'll be happy.

If the installer had told me about the limited spring lifetime before installing the strut, we probably would have gone for a new door.

 

[not2old]

If you decide to up-grade to longer lasting springs, ask how heavy they are before ordering them. I ordered custom made springs as my garage doors were used near 50 times each day and the originals lasted less than two years. When they arrived, I could hardly lift them, at least 50 lbs. each. They were difficult to install and I was worried that the pipe they were installed on was too weak to hold them. They did turn out OK though. When you replace the rollers, not only should you buy the metal ones, get the ones with more balls in them. Go to a company that installs and services doors for your parts rather than a hardware store where they won't even know what you are talking about.