A carriage-style door can turn a plain brick ranch or a new house in the county into something people notice from the road. OnPoint Pro Doors helps you choose between real wood and wood-grain steel or composite with the local summers, ice storms and hail in mind, installs it, and the estimate is free.
Tell us what the door is doing. Nothing begins until you've heard the number, and hearing it is free.
Carriage-house doors take their look from the doors of old coach houses: vertical boards, a row of windows across the top, and black handles and hinges that are purely decorative. Underneath, they are sectional doors that roll up overhead on tracks, so they fit the same openings as any other door and work with the same openers.
On a long, low brick ranch, a carriage door adds the detail the front often lacks. On a farmhouse-style home out in the county, it looks like it belongs there.
In the older neighborhoods near the university, where garages are small detached buildings with a single door, a simple carriage door with a short row of windows suits the scale of the building better than a plain flat door does.
Real wood doors are warm, solid and quiet, and they ask more of their owners here than in drier places. Muggy summers swell the wood until it rubs the jambs, and dry winter air shrinks it back. Over the years that movement opens joints and cracks the finish, and the bottom edge, nearest the wet driveway, is where rot starts.
A wood door still makes sense for someone who wants it and will keep up with it: a finish renewed on schedule, a bottom edge sealed on every face, and springs that are checked as the door's weight shifts with the seasons. That is said plainly before anyone orders one.
A wood door also takes a mower or trailer bump worse than steel does: the wood splits along the grain, and a split board lets water straight into the core of the door.
Most people who love the look end up with steel or composite in a wood-grain finish. These doors don't swell in July, don't need repainting every few years, and stand up to the knocks a garage door takes from mowers and trailers better than wood does.
They come insulated, which keeps a garage noticeably cooler in the afternoon sun and quieter when the door runs. A good composite overlay is hard to tell from real wood at driveway distance.
Because the grain is pressed into the steel or molded into the composite, the finish keeps its color far longer in the afternoon sun than a stain on bare wood.
Spring storms here bring hail and straight-line wind, and a garage door is the biggest opening on the house. Heavier steel resists hail dents better than thin steel, and a composite face hides small dimples. On wide two-car doors facing open ground, reinforcing struts and sturdier hinges keep the door from bowing in a gust.
The windows in a carriage door's top section can be chosen with storms in mind, and the technician points out which options suit the direction your garage faces.
Wood doors and composite overlays are heavier than plain steel. The springs are chosen for the door you buy, whether they are open coils or springs inside a tube, and the opener is matched so it lifts the weight without strain. Rollers and hinges are sized up to match.
Before the technician leaves, the door is balanced so it stays put halfway up, run through several full cycles, and its auto-reverse is proven.
On doors with springs housed in a tube, the setting is done with the tools that system needs; open coils are wound and set the conventional way. Either way the job belongs to the technician, not the homeowner.
Darker stains and deep colors suit brick, and lighter tones suit siding and stone. Samples are brought to the driveway so the choice is made in daylight, against the house itself. Window inserts can be clear, frosted or textured; frosted keeps a street-facing garage private and still lets light in.
Where a subdivision has rules about door styles or colors, the choices are made inside them and written up for approval before anything is ordered.
Matching the door to the trim rather than the brick is a common trick on ranches, because it ties the garage into the rest of the front instead of making it the loudest thing on the house.
If an older wood door is rubbing, cracking or soft at the bottom, a repair is sometimes the right call: boards replaced, edges sealed, the springs set for its real weight. If the frame has twisted or rot has climbed the sides, a new door is usually the better use of the effort.
Both options are written out side by side, with a free estimate, so the decision is yours.
Built to order: one visit to measure, one to install.
Almost never. They are sectional doors that roll up overhead; the handles and strap hinges are decorative.
It can be, with upkeep. Wood swells in humid weather and needs its finish renewed regularly. Wood-grain steel or composite gives the same look with far less care.
Heavier steel and composite faces resist hail better than thin steel or wood. The technician explains the options for your house.
Yes. Most steel and composite carriage doors come insulated, which keeps the garage cooler and quieter.
Sometimes. The opener is matched to the new door's weight at the estimate, before anything is ordered.
Both can work. Darker stains often suit red brick, while a painted door matched to the trim ties a long ranch front together. Samples are compared at the driveway so you can see it on the house.
Sometimes. Soft boards and open joints can be repaired if the door is otherwise sound. The estimate shows the repair and a new door side by side.
Yes. Carriage styles come in larger sizes, and the springs and track are sized for the bigger door.
Yes. Measuring, samples and the written estimate are free, and you can say no.
Describe the fault and we'll give you an honest arrival time. The visit and the estimate is free, anywhere in Greene County.
Easier to explain by phone? Call (417) 216-7189.
Tell us what the door is doing. Nothing begins until you've heard the number, and hearing it is free.