What type of garage door do I have?

Whilst everyone who owns or uses a garage door will have a basic idea of how it opens, most people do not know what kind of garage door they have. Indeed, as long as a door works properly in a trouble free manner, the way in which it works is not important.

However, if you need to do some maintenance work, make some repairs, or replace your garage door you will need to know what type of door and operating system you have.

How to identify your garage door

If your door is in fact two doors that open outwards and away from each other on vertical hinges (like any other typical door) then you have a side hinged door. That is the easy one.

If your door moves horizontally on rollers or tracks that are fitted above and below the door, and the door is a single panel with vertically hinged sections, you probably have a sliding or slide around the corner door. Your door will normally come to rest at some point to the side of the opening, or even some distance away from the opening on a different wall. However it will never leave the ground and although it may bend as it travels it will not split into two or more panels. (The exceptions to this rule are large industrial sliding doors where, in unusual cases, there may be two separate doors that complete a single opening.)

The difficult one to figure out is the case where your door disappears upwards and inside your garage and when this happens you may have one of three different operating systems. A roller door, a sectional door or an up and over door of which there are two variations, the canopy and the retractable.

If your garage door travel upwards vertically and rolls around a drum that is suspended above and just behind the door opening, then you have a roller garage door. The door, which is made of hinged or flexible horizontal panels, will be rolled up in a compact cylinder and will take up a minimum amount of room.

If the door ascends upwards in a similar manner to a roller door, but rather than wrapping around a drum lies flat (parallel to the roof or roof joists) in a horizontal plain, you have a sectional garage door. The big difference between a sectional door and a roller door is in the way in which it is stored when the door is open.

If the door, when opening, makes a motion that sees it rising upwards and tilting towards the horizontal at the same time it is probably an up and over door. If it is the door will be made of a single sheet of metal and it will not bend or hinge in any way.

You determine which type of up and over door you have by looking at the position of the door once it is fully opened. (See below these sponsored ads.)

If the bottom part of the door (e.g. about a third of its height) projects outwards from the opening you have a canopy up and over garage door.

If the whole of the door is stored away inside of the garage (i.e. not projecting outside of the opening) then you have a retractable roller garage door.