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The Advantages of Wood
Costs and designs are only the beginning. There are numerous advantages that come with all wood or even wood looking garage doors. Understanding the benefits will surely help your garage door buying decision.
The biggest advantage of wood garage doors is that they can be customized to fit your home and style. The doors can be designed with different shapes and sizes. You can choose to keep the wood in its natural color or select a good stain.
Also, wood is an insulator and absorbs sound well, which can help reduce neighborhood noise pollution. Wood is also energy efficient and can help to lower heating and cooling costs in garages that are connected to the home's HVAC system.
Another unique feature of wood garage doors is that they can be customized to work with unleveled garage floors, including those built into a slopes or curves.
The Difference is in our details.
Why we use Kiln-dried wood & heavy duty hardware.
Green lumber has an average moisture content above 19 percent. As green lumber dries, it can shrink, warp or twist. Green lumber is usually less expensive than kiln-dried lumber and can be used where movement will not weaken a structure or wreak havoc on a design detail.
Kiln-Dried lumber has a much lower moisture content than green lumber.
In the case of kiln dried lumber, the wood is dried in giant kilns with carefully controlled temperature and humidity levels. The goal is to get the boards to dry quickly and evenly, and to prevent warping that could render the wood unusable. The alternative is air drying, in which lumber is allowed to sit in a breezy area so that it loses moisture and contracts. Air drying tends to take longer, and it brings the moisture content closer to 15% than the desired 6% to 8%.
From the outside many other door makers do a wonderful job. I have seen some beautifully constructed solid custom wood garage doors. However, many I've seen the inside and the difference is in the details of hardware used. I've observed hardware used as though it was a light weight metal door and that's not a good idea for the longevity of your custom wood garage door.
Our difference you can see in the hardware we use. We use a heavier metal hinge for longer lasting operation, a lag screw that is made for wood not metal screws so that it connects to the wood and will not work loose over time, a wider heavier drum that can withstand the constant strain to the cable tension from the heavier wood door, longer stemmed rollers to make sure it doesn't roll off track, thicker-wider struts on each panel to prevent sagging, a heavier duty horizontal track to withstand the weight of a wood door, and heavier duty torsion springs to assist with the ease of operation moving the open and close.
Attention to the details is what separates us from many others. The attention to the details comes from years of experience building, installing and servicing custom wood garage doors.
Acetylated Southern Yellow Pine (ASYP)
We have currently introduced to our client base custom garage doors made from Acetylated Southern Yellow Pine aka ASYP. This wood makes a beautiful garage door that is stainable, paintable, and not as knotty as the Western Red Tight Knot Cedar. The lifespan of the ASYP is as durable as the cedar when taken care of properly. Below is the science behind Acetylated wood.
Acetylated wood is more dimensionally stable and resistant to biological attack than non-acetylated wood. In this study, the stability of acetylated wood was tested under various pH, temperature, and moisture conditions. Ground acetylated southern yellow pine and aspen flakes were treated with buffer ranging from 2 to 8 pH, exposed at 24 C, 50 C, or 75 C for different periods, and tested for acetyl content. At 24 C, acetylated wood was more stable at pH 6 than pH 2, 4, or 8. At 50 C and 75 C, acetylated wood was more stable at pH 4 than at the other pH values. The half-life of acetylated wood continuously in contact with a buffered liquid at pH 6 and 24 C was approximately 30 years. For acetylated wood used under normal circumstances, the half-life would be expected to be much longer. Acetylated southern yellow pine and aspen flakes were also (1) kept at 90% relative humidity at 27 C for 6 years or (2) cycled (42-day cycle) between 90 and 30% relative humidity for 5 years. The loss of acetyl was less than 2% in both the constant and cyclic relative humidity tests. The stability of acetylated wood suggests that such wood can be used for products exposed to changes in humidity.
Stability of acetylated wood to environmental changes. Available from: Wood and fiber science: journal of the Society of Wood Science and Technology
Acetylated Southern Yellow Pine
Acetylated Southern Yellow Pine
Acetylated Southern Yellow Pine
Examples of Clear & Better Cedar.
Clear cedar comes from the center of the tree with hardly any knots in the wood, produces less lumber, and is higher in cost to use. However, it does make a beautiful garage door.
Examples of Regular (Knotty) Cedar
A great wood to use for garage doors and makes a beautiful design in any stain color. Highly durable against all weather extremes against rot and insect infestation when maintained properly.
