What is the best material for a garage door?

I will be building a house in the San Juan Islands near Bellingham, WA. What is the best material for a garage door? I’ve heard fiberglass is better resistant to the salt air, but a steel door is stronger. We have strong winds in the 80-100MPH range. This will be a standard 2-car garage. 16′ X 7′ door. Any experience or advice would be greatly appreciated.

I would ask your local building inspector. I would go with re-enforced fiberglass, I do know that if the surface in broken up, something like ripples or raised ridges then the wind won’t affect it any, but if it is flat, even steel doesn’t hold up to the wind. plus fiberglass isn’t so hard on your door opener. If you watch what happens during a hurricane, you will see that large flat surfaces like a sign flat roofs and garage doors fly through the air, because they work like an airplane wing,the air moves across the top and creates lift, if an airplane wing had ridges on it then it would never leave the ground.

Posted in air x wind | 3 Comments »

3 Responses

  1. hehmommy04 Says:
    March 21st, 2010 at 5:29 pm

    I would personally go with the steel.
    References :

  2. DR_NC Says:
    March 21st, 2010 at 6:03 pm

    That is a large door. I would use steel just for the wind load rating. If it were two smaller doors, fiberglass would be OK. I do agree the look of fiberglass is better and there are fewer maintenance issues. You need to look at energy efficiency ratings as well.
    References :
    landlord

  3. mr.obvious Says:
    March 21st, 2010 at 6:41 pm

    I would ask your local building inspector. I would go with re-enforced fiberglass, I do know that if the surface in broken up, something like ripples or raised ridges then the wind won’t affect it any, but if it is flat, even steel doesn’t hold up to the wind. plus fiberglass isn’t so hard on your door opener. If you watch what happens during a hurricane, you will see that large flat surfaces like a sign flat roofs and garage doors fly through the air, because they work like an airplane wing,the air moves across the top and creates lift, if an airplane wing had ridges on it then it would never leave the ground.
    References :

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