Wood and carriage-house garage doors for Front Range homes

A real wood door is built from cedar, hemlock or a similar species and finished with stain or paint. Up close nothing else matches it, and it can be made in almost any pattern. It also asks the most of its owner.

Wood-look steel puts a pressed grain and a factory finish on a steel skin, usually with insulation behind it, and from the curb it reads as stained wood. Composite doors are molded to look like wood, shrug off moisture and hold paint well. Most of our carriage-door installs here end up in one of those two, because they keep the look with a fraction of the upkeep.

Wood-look steel also comes in more grain patterns and stain tones than it used to, from light oak to deep walnut, so it can be matched to the trim, the front door or the fence rather than chosen from two or three options.

At this elevation the sun is harder on finishes than most people expect, and a door facing south or west takes the brunt of it. Add warm afternoons followed by cold nights and very dry air, and a stain on real wood fades, chalks and starts to crack sooner than it would at sea level.

That is manageable. A real wood door here simply needs its finish renewed on a regular schedule, with the bottom rail watched closest because it takes the snowmelt and the splash from the driveway. You hear what that schedule looks like before choosing, so the decision is made with eyes open.

Hail treats wood and steel differently. Solid wood takes a dent where a stone lands and can split along the grain on a hard hit, while a heavier steel skin with a wood-grain texture tends to hide small marks. On a street that has been through a few storms, that difference is often what tips the choice toward wood-look steel.

Insulated carriage doors help here too, because the foam behind the skin supports it against an impact. A thin, uninsulated pan door in a carriage style looks the part on day one but dents far more easily.

If a storm does dent a section later, most steel carriage doors from current lines can take a replacement section, while a custom wood door usually means a carpenter or a new door. That is worth weighing before the order goes in.

A carriage-house door is styled after the swing-out doors of an old coach house: a seam down the middle, vertical boards or cross bucks, and often a row of windows across the top. Behind the look it is a standard sectional door that rolls up on tracks and runs on an opener.

The handles and strap hinges on the face are decorative and fixed. They don't move when the door opens, so they never catch on the track or each other as the sections fold overhead.

Detached alley garages often have a low header and an opening that isn't quite standard, and carriage doors can be built to fit them, with a low-headroom track where the ceiling sits close. Garages tucked under split-levels get the same treatment.

On the wide three-car doors of the newer houses out east, a carriage design breaks up a long blank face and makes the garage look less dominant from the street. Those wide doors get reinforcing struts where the maker specifies them, since gusts off the foothills catch a long door like a sail.

Carriage and wood doors are ordered to fit, so the visit sequence matters.

1. Samples outsideStains, paints and wood-grain finishes held up against your brick or siding in daylight.
2. Measured top to bottomWidth, height, headroom, side room and depth, and the frame checked for rot.
3. Free estimate and the orderMaterial, design, windows, insulation, hardware and springs listed; nothing ordered without your approval.
4. Installed and balancedSections hung, springs set to the new door's weight, seals placed and the reverse tested.

Wood is heavy, and so is an insulated steel door compared with the bare one it usually replaces. The springs are sized to the new door's actual weight once it's hung, not to the old door's springs, which is what makes the door lift easily and stay put halfway.

The opener is checked against that weight before anything is ordered. An opener that is already working hard gets a frank recommendation, and on a garage with a bedroom above, a quieter belt drive is often the better pairing for a heavier door.

Heavier doors also lean harder on their hinges, rollers and track, so heavier-duty hardware goes on where the maker calls for it, and the tracks are fastened into solid framing that can carry the load.

Where a street has an association, its rules on door styles and colors are worth reading before ordering. Windows in the top section bring daylight into a garage used as a workshop, and frosted or seeded glass keeps the inside private while still letting the light in.

On an insulated door the windows are insulated glass as well, so the top section doesn't turn into the cold spot on a winter night. Arched lites suit some older houses; square ones look cleaner on a ranch or a newer front.