Yes, You Can Build Your Own Garage Doors

Been quite awhile since my last post, it's not due to a lack of things being done but too many things that are in process and I've been too busy to write. But with the completion of our garage doors it's time for an update.

When most people think garage doors they think sectional metal doors and they do this for a reason; they're a good product and it's just about all anyone installs these days. These doors are great - low maintenance and they do the job but OMG are they boring. I didn't want boring for our new place so I decided to build my own sectional doors out of wood.

Now I've never done this before so I had to do a little research before I could get going. I knew I could make the door portion but I didn't know about getting the metal hardware - track, springs and hinges and all of the other bits you need to get the doors to operate. A little research online and I found a place in Chicago (DDM Garage Doors) that would would take my design parameters and send me the complete hardware package. After a few emails with Jim at DDM where we went over all the pertinent information like door weight, size, headroom, etc. he was able to design my hardware package and send it off via regular freight. All in all it was a pretty easy thing and a step I was apprehensive about was very manageable. (Just a sidenote about DDM - one of the shafts was damaged during shipped - bent almost into a "U" - and when I emailed DDM a replacement was on my doorstep in a few days. Great customer service).

SO with the hardware aspect solved all I needed to do was build the doors. I decided that each section would be built around the concept of a torsion box so I could have great strength while minimizing weight. Since I didn't have my table saw operating at the time I made the frame out of dimensional lumber (2x2's at the top and bottom with 2x4's on the sides and middle). On each side of the frame I attached 1/4" CDX plywood faces with copious amounts of waterproof glue and brad nails. The units are strong and will last forever.

We wanted to add windows to the top panels of each door and I was lucky to find beveled glass units on Ebay that we purchased for $12 each. Unfortunately we were one short and this last one cost $60 from the glass shop. It pained me greatly to shell out that much for the final piece.

I needed to figure out a wood facing that would be attractive and hold up to the elements. I was at Lowes one day and found myself standing next to some ugly cedar fence boards and I figured I'd experiment with a couple to see how that would look. I planed the picket down to 1/2", cut rabbets on both sides and cut it into three pieces. After staining, the ugly pickets had been transformed and were quite acceptable for my purpose. I went back to Lowes and bought 60 of them which was sufficient for my project. At $2.10 per picket the total cost was a very manageable $145. The only issue I had was that each picket was wetter than soggy toilet paper and it took a week of air drying before they were dry enough to chance machining them to  the proper dimension and shape.

The problem with wood doors is that harsh weather (sun and rain) will damage them over time. My house faces to the SE so I really only get the morning sun and I have a decent overhang protecting the doors from rain but I still wanted to use the best exterior polyurethane I could find. I ended up using 3 coats of General Finishes Exterior 450 waterborne polyurethane which should last at least 10 years before needing to be refinished. Since cedar is a soft wood and soft woods look blotchy when stained I evened out the finish by applying 2 coats of a 1 lb cut shellac and stained with General Finishes gel stain. Although it was a pain in the butt the finish turned out great.

I'm somewhat ashamed to say that the first door and opener took me a day and a half to install, the learning curve was admittedly pretty steep. My garage ceiling is only 8' tall so I had to use track that's different from your standard doors. As you can see from the picture it's actually a double track system with the top track designed to get the top section moving backwards immediately without gaining any elevation. This complicated the install (mainly because the instructions I had were for a standard garage door) and it didn't help that the instruction for the Genie opener I bought at Lowes missed a key step that I only discovered after everything was up. The second door was a piece of cake - roughly 4 hours to install the door and GDO - I'm not worried if I ever have another door to install in the future.

The garage door project was time intensive and there was a pretty good learning curve; I'm quite confident I could cut the time in half for future doors which is significant. Cost-wise I was quite pleased. I haven't priced wood sectional doors out in a long time but 10 years ago I saw price of $3000 or so per door so if prices had stayed the same I'd be looking at $6k minimum to buy them from a garage door dealer. My costs were quite bit less.

Frames (dimensional lumber and plywood) - $300
Cedar - $150
Hardware - $800
Openers (2) - $450
Stain and Polyurethane - $100

Total - $1800

So I think the doors turned out great and I'd do this project again in a heartbeat. (The pictures don't do the doors justice - my cameraphone sucks)