To start it is important to know what company you are dealing with and you will need to ask questions
as to what a standard garage door is for that company. In most cases standard two car garage doors will
be 16 feet wide and 7 feet tall. A standard single car garage door will be 8 feet wide and 7 feet tall.
There are however many different size garage doors so you must measure the actual garage door
opening to determine what size door you will need.
Our standard garage door is a 25 gauge stamped steel panel garage door. Many companies use much
lighter weight steel in their stamped panels. We see many garage doors made of very lightweight steel
of 26 and 27 gauge. Remember in steel gauge the higher the number the lighter the weight of the steel.
If your garage door is 16 feet wide it will have a top strut preinstalled. The strut provides added strength
and rigidity to the panel and is installed horizontally across the top of the top panel. We believe the strut
is critical on the top panel because the garage door opener attaches to this panel and the door is pulled
open and pushed closed by this panel. Some companies charge extra for this strut, but it is standard on
all our garage doors. On 16 foot wide garage doors, we also utilize 5 stiles to help add support and
strength to the garage door. Stiles are installed vertically on each garage door panel adding strength and
rigidity to the stamped steel panels. Many companies use 3 stiles across the panels and these garage
doors will not withstand the regular use and abuse garage doors experience. We use 16 gauge hinges as
our standard while many companies use very lightweight 18 or 20 gauge hinges. We also use a 0.250
spring for our standard 16 foot garage door this spring is rated for 10,000 life cycles with a two year
warranty. Many companies use a 0.243 spring with 7,000 life cycles or even a 0.234 spring with 4,000
life cycles for the standard spring. We also use nylon 11 ball bearing rollers as the standard while other
companies use plastic or steel rollers with no ball bearings.
If your garage door is 8 feet wide it will also have a strut preinstalled horizontally across the top panel.
Most companies do not include this strut on 8 foot wide doors. We feel it is just as important on the
smaller doors as it is on the 16 foot doors. On our 8 foot doors we use 3 stiles while many other
companies use only 2. We use the same 16 gauge hinges that are used on our 16 foot doors while other
companies use 18 or 20 gauge hinges. Our standard spring on an 8 foot garage door is 0.207 with 10,000
life cycles and a two year warranty. Many companies use 0.200 spring with 6,000 life cycles. We use the
nylon 11 ball bearing rollers while others companies use plastic or steel rollers with no ball bearings.
We provide our customers with standard upgrades over builder grade. Builder grade is typically 26 or 27
grade stamped steel while we use minimum 25 gauge stamped steel. Builder grade is 3 stiles and we use
