Anybody made their own garage door(s)?

[loply]

Hi folks,

I'm in the middle of getting a new garage built, and I'm trying to decide what to do for the garage doors.

The opening is 3.2m in total and ideally I want side-hinged timber doors (or at least that appearance). I might make one a folding one, and the other a normal one.

Don't like roller doors because if you need to open them to let fumes out or to get to/from the car you have to open them all the way, lets the dust blow in and everybody can see in.

Commercially available timber doors cost an absolute fortune (one place quoted me £4k!) and don't look very secure - a big prybar or a chordless jigsaw and they will come right open.

Thinking about welding up a steel frame and affixing a timber facia to the front therefore, hopefully it will be secure, not warp, etc, just wondering if anybody else has done something similar?

Cheers,
Rich

[DavidA]

I would use 2" x 2" x 1/4"  black angle iron. and weld up two rectangular frames. Cross-braced.

Cover the frames with 1/2" ply and then add a sheet steel cladding.  Make sure you turn over the edges so no one can get a lever behind and pry it off.

Ensure that the doors are sunk into the garage frame ( flush with the edges so no access for a crow bar. Big chunky hinges completely concealed.

Use dome headed coach bolts to fix the cladding/ply to the angle frame.  Maybe even tack the bolt heads to the steel sheet.

Worked well for me .

Dave.

[PekkaNF]

If you are planning something like this it is megabucks, no matter what:
http://www.woodritedoors.co.uk/making-of-a-timber-garage-door



My father build three sets of double doors. That big doors are pretty heavy and offer good resistance to any hinge. He made hinges himself. They are classical pin and leaf type, pin is about 25 mm. Hard to bolt on, because they need some serious wood to back up.

Normal door frame would twist under this load. Also the door itself was build torsionaly rigid. He put urethane (or styroxfoam) hard insulation inside and screwed 12 mm (or so) Plywood on inside. Weather resistant plywood outside. That keeps the doors straight. They are heavy as hell. Rest of hardware was standard.

We have snow all winter. Absolute proverbial to clean all out from the concrete slab on front. Those doors have a big swing and it's a good workout to showel 30 cm on wet snow out of it when it snows on the evening and you don't want it to freeze over night.

Plan it carefully. If you are planning to use normal hinges, you need probably three or four of them. Don't be afraid to put hinge pin outside, you can put pins on door frame and bushings to door rail (these need to be angled). Anyways it might get your attention if someone needs a good angle grinder or such to saw trough your welded 1" pin and there is several of them!
http://www.roca.fi/lukitus-turvallisuus/shared/UL/products/905392-2.gif
http://www.rocaindustry.com/ovet-ikkunat/Product/Murtosuojatappi-|-SLUG-10/125/Full|1319/
http://www.rocaindustry.com/ovet-ikkunat/Product/Murtosuojatappi-|-MS1/125/Full|1148/
Hope they show in English, click union jack if not.

Could not find any good guide, much of them are like:
http://www.triangletactical.net/2012/11/19/opsec-10-tips-for-not-becoming-a-home-invasion-target-during-the-holiday-travel-season-part-2/


Pekka

[loply]

Yes I think I will put the hinges on the outside, probably 4 per door, they make security hinges with those little pins in which mean the doors can't be removed even if the hinge is ground off. I will have bolts through the door to the concrete and lintel anyway.

I think I will make the traditional garage door frame with Z shapes on the inside, but from steel, then I will use exterior grade timber to make what appears to be the frame of a traditional door around the outsides, but infill it with plywood if that makes sense.

The hinges will be screwed to the steel frame via threaded countersunk fasteners, so not going into the wood at all.

One thing I would like to do - not sure if I will get round to it or not - is have all the bolts electronic ones with either an electronic traditional key which retracts them, or maybe some kind of Arduino/Raspberry Pi RFID or numeric keypad system... This way you can have lots of bolts but not the inconvenience of undoing them one by one!

[Kjelle]

Loply, Pekkas idea is very good... And if you go the electronic route with the bolts, remember that default for commercial electric locks is no voltage, no locking (good idea if you lock and unlock the emergency exits with a button)... Now, I don't think that is a good idea for you... But do think of how you open those big doors if you loose electricity!

Kjelle

[loply]

Kjelle, most of the locks I've seen premade are like normal door latches with a solenoid, so you have to energise the solenoid for a second or so to open the door, then you can slam the door shut and the angled plunger will retract automatically and then spring back out into the slot.

Obviously if there was no power it would not be possible to retract them, but, in this day and age that's incredibly rare and I can't imagine needing to open the door in an emergency. If push came to shove I could take some jump leads and use a car battery, spare 12v charger or suchlike... There is a normal rear door too which I could use if the place caught fire whilst I was in there or something!

[Eugene]

Rather than infill with plywood which can get shabby pretty quickly unless you opt for a marine grade (megabucks) I'd go with treated ship lap which looks nicely "rustic" when unpainted, but  given a couple of coats of Ronseal looks quite smart. It's also a lot lighter than ply. This is mine after 7 Welsh winters ..... sound as a pound.

Cladding with ship lap is dead easy and very quick ... takes longer to paint it.



Eug

[loply]

Eugene, thanks for that tip, I'll probably take that onboard. I was going to cut V-grooves in the ply with the router to simulate that kind of appearance anyway!

Only difference compared to yours is that I plan to frame around the 'outside' of the door with thicker wood to make it look like a traditional mortice + tenon door, probably decking planks with the smooth side outwards, then I'll fill the middle with ship lap on the back of your comments I think...

[PekkaNF]

Happy you know the secure hinges. I don't know official name for them. Some have pins, some have tabs.

Whatever construction you do, I would ask you to consider having one integral/whole plate/sheet/plywood somewhere in the the door leaf. You really need a whole lot more torsional stiffness than your normal door. I would not use plywood "infills" or such, you really should screw the crap out of it to make hold. Even normal residental wood doors here have fairly thick continuos  aluminium sheet on the middle to stop the door drooping.

I'm sure you are going to make it good and beatifull.

Pekka

[S.D.L.]

Just a comment

I had a roller door fitted and best thing I have done to the Workshop..

It will stop at any position.

The slats are hollow Aluminium full of insulating foam.

The sides have brushes sealing both sides, result no Draughts.

I could go into the shop any time last winter and the only heating I have is two 80W oil filled tubes

Steve

[one_rod]

Can't help with the timber-clad part, but for what it's worth, here's the shop doors I recently made.

Workshop doors by one_rod, on Flickr

50 x 50 mm box section steel perimeter frames, with cross-pieces where the hinge straps mount.

I chose that size for the the very specific and technical reason that the scrappie  had some in, and it was cheap.
Hinges came from the TWCIUOD box.

Clad in 1.2mm  galv. sheeting. Had a local steelyard guillotine it  to size and deliver it. Costs more that way, but definitely worth it.

They do look a bit industrial, but I wanted something to deter potential intruders.
The same steelyard sells colour-coated steel sheet in all sorts of finishes.
I have seen "wood grain" effect sheeting before. So something along those lines might be a good compromise between security and weight / ease of construction?


one_rod.