Garage doors offer more than the generic open/shut feature that keeps items in your garage’s interior safe from the outdoor elements. Regardless of the standard features brought by traditional garage doors, perhaps your residential or commercial space needs a garage door that extends its value and utility. In search of something more than the customary overhead garage door, buyers are now looking at considering options such as sliding garage doors. Below is a breakdown showing the benefits to owning and operating sliding garage doors.
Sliding Garage Doors: A Brief Introduction
Sliding garage doors offer multiple arrangements and customizations as you can have one large paneled door or a pair of bi-parting doors. When selecting your sliding door, you have the opportunity to customize any design options regarding the hardware, materials used, color, and the inclusion of additional add-ons. Tailoring your garage door with windows, decorative hinges, and woodwork could increase your residential curb appeal or make useful elements to your commercial space look aesthetically pleasing simultaneously. This version of a garage door offers multiple, tangible uses for daily life in the home or at the office just by simply changing the overhead motor and track from a vertical to a horizontal retraction.
Easy to Use
The greatest benefit to owning a sliding garage door during a power outage is that the door can be easily opened and shut with little force. Given that the track moves side to side instead of up and down, this action can be performed by nearly anyone as it requires little force exertion. Sliding Garage doors come in the option of manual or electric operation, catering to either preference.
Motor Operates Quietly
For anyone who can’t stand the loud motor from a traditional garage door, this feature is for you. A quietly operating motor greatly impacts anyone keen on noise control, especially for offices or bedrooms directly above the garage. Since the sliding garage door tacks are set horizontally, the motor requires less force to open the doors. Therefore, it does not make as much noise.
Less Air Escaping
Who doesn’t love saving money on their heating and air conditioning bill? A great advantage to owning a sliding garage door is that when you need to partially open the door to grab a tool or return a snow shovel, you just need to open the door wide enough for you to get through. Compared to a garage door that moves vertically, sliding garage doors prevent excess air from escaping your garage when you need to place or remove anything other than a vehicle from the unit.
Continuously Full Height
Sometimes, you need to quickly enter or exit the garage but don’t want to open the garage door all the way. Previously with overhead garage doors, that would result in you ducking under the partially raised door. With sliding garage doors, no matter how wide of an opening you need, it always opens at full height. Another advantage to this feature allows additional overhead storage space. Since the motor and tracks are placed horizontally, that overhead space—previously taken by the overhead garage motor and track—is now available for you to work with!
Quick to Fix
Maintenance is not usually a consideration when purchasing garage doors. With any door, there will eventually come a time when some element needs to be repaired; it could be the track, a squeaky wheel, or even a damaged panel. Another advantage to owning a sliding garage door is the easy maintenance factor. If damaged, repairs are made quickly and easily.
With any garage door, you want to be sure that it’s made to stand the test of time. Richards-Wilcox Hardware wants to help ensure your garage door is equipped with any of our premium hardware options selected to endure more than the typical wear and tear. With multiple style options, Richards-Wilcox Hardware caters to all preferences when offering tracks, mounting brackets, and end stops. Contact us today to see how we can equip your next garage door for the long haul.
