When you think of a residential garage door, it’s likely you are imagining the standard overhead door that runs on a track. But if you want your garage door to stand out from the run of the mill overhead doors, you may want to consider the swing-out garage door.
What is a swing out garage door?
These stylish doors usually come in sets of two that swing out into your driveway when you are opening your garage. They’re commonly modeled after the look of old-fashioned barn doors, but can certainly be customized, and can be installed in any size garage.
What are the benefits?
Since the swing out garage doors rest on hinges like most doors inside your home, you won’t necessarily have to keep up with the same repairs that an overhead garage door that sits on a track would require. Even if you decide to hook up your swing out garage doors to an automatic opener, the force required to open and close garage doors that aren’t being suspended in the air is much less. For this reason, swing out doors may be a more energy-efficient choice for your home. Additionally, a swing-out garage door may prove more safe for your family, since the lack of a suspended door means there’s much less machinery involved in the garage door system. The doors are not under the same stress and force as an overhead door with springs which must be used with more care.
What are the drawbacks?
It’s important to consider the potential limitations of your swing-out garage doors. While there are many potential security solutions available to you such as latch-locks and automated controls, the fact that swing-out doors resemble and function like your average door at home may make them more accessible to any intruders. Your swing-out doors may be easier to move and use than an overhead door that requires a great deal of force to lift. Additionally you want to ensure that you are always conscious of the space these doors will take up. Since they open out into your driveway, you will need to take extra care when parking in your garage to ensure you don’t pull up so close that your doors do damage to your car or vice versa.
No matter what choice you make, just know there are more possibilities for the appearance of your garage door than you may have realized. If you’ve been thinking of switching up the exterior of your home for a while, installing a swing out garage door may just be the thing you are looking for.