Do these garage doors need to be replaced — or just repainted?

Woodridge, Va.

A: Judging from the pictures you sent, your doors might just need repainting, not replacing.

Representatives of two companies in the business of repairing and installing garage doors both offered that advice. Debbie Hopkins, office manager at C & D Doors in Gordonsville (540-832-3564; cddoorsgordonsville.com), said the company recently went to a home where the bottom rail of a 16-foot-wide garage door was completely rotted out. That did need to be replaced. But in your case, she said, “I don’t see any rotting.”

Justin White, vice president of Overhead Door Company of Washington D.C., which is based in Beltsville (301-937-1800; overheaddoor.com/washington-dc), offered a similar assessment. “From what I can see, the paint is just coming off,” he said.

Of course, it’s impossible to accurately diagnose the condition of a garage door simply by looking at pictures, but if the wood is solid, you might just need to wash the surface, scrape and lightly sand where the paint is peeling, and then prime and paint. Because your house was built around 1995, there’s little risk of lead paint, which the federal government banned for consumer uses in 1978.

To test whether the wood has rotted, try poking it with the tip of a screwdriver or an awl. If it goes in only an eighth of an inch or so, the wood is probably still sound. If you can poke in deeper, though, you definitely need to at least replace the bottom panel. “It’s dangerous,” White said. Overhead doors have a cable and an extension spring to help lift and lower the door. “All the tension is on the bottom panel,” White said, so if the wood there disintegrates, the door can suddenly give way and seriously hurt anyone nearby. White said his company would never assess safety just from pictures. The company would arrange a visit to your home, where someone could inspect the door and, if necessary, measure for a replacement panel or a whole new door. There is no charge for this.

It is possible to replace just one section of a roll-up door, but the challenge with older doors is finding a matching panel. The wooden doors sold today tend to have raised panels, not the recessed type you have, Hopkins said. Plus, you need an exact size match. To function correctly, the replacement needs to be the same not only in width and height, but also in thickness. And for visual appeal, the stiles and rails (the vertical and horizontal framing around the panels) need to match what you have now. Matching the species of wood or type of manufactured wood product isn’t an issue, though, because your doors are painted.

Even though your doors have a simple frame-and-panel design, with four framed sections on each of four horizontal panels, matching panels might not be available. “The tooling has changed over the years, making the panels slightly larger or smaller depending on the manufacturer,” White said. “Also, the angle at which the panels are cut has changed in some situations.” The visual effect would be very noticeable — especially because you might not save all that much by going this route.

Prices depend on location, but in the area served by the D.C. Overhead Door dealership, replacing the bottom panel could cost $500 to $600 per door, or $900 to $1,200 for the pair, including installation, White said.

If you opt to replace the doors, the least expensive option is a non-insulated steel door. C & D charges around $900 per door, including installation, so the figure you cited is in the same ballpark. The D.C. dealership of Overhead Door estimated $1,400 to $1,800 for a pair of these doors. A pair of insulated steel doors, the most popular option, might cost $1,800 to $2,000 including installation, White said.

Chris Shaner, who works for the Overhead Door Company of Charlottesville, which is closer to your house, said his company rarely replaces sections of older wooden doors any more, “as the small wood door manufacturers that made these old doors have gone out of business, and the larger wood door manufacturers cannot match up the stiles and rails on these older doors.”

Source:WP