Garage Door Types: How to Choose the Right Garage Door

• Roller Garage Doors: Offer modern design and space efficiency, freeing up both interior and exterior garage space.
• Up & Over Garage Doors: Provide a traditional look with a wide range of material choices for customization.
• Sectional Garage Doors: Blend features of roller and up-and-over doors, delivering style and effective insulation.
• Side-Hinged and Wooden Doors: Side-hinged doors suit traditional homes but are less automation-friendly, while wooden doors excel in insulation and style but need more maintenance and have a higher cost.

Welcome to JB Garage Doors’ brand new blog! For our first post, we thought we’d start things off by providing people in the market for a new garage door with a comprehensive guide to all the different types and their respective benefits. From roller to side-hinged, there’s something out there for everyone, so let’s just dive right in.

What are the different types of garage doors?

There is a wide range of garage doors to choose from depending on your needs and budget. Typically, each type of garage door comes with its own set of benefits. Below we’ll be exploring the most popular types of garage doors and their benefits.

Roller garage doors

Roller garage doors are popular primarily because they’re supremely practical. The door is made up of tiny slats that coil up into a roll rather than arcing back. What this means for you is that you can save roof space inside your garage, as well as space for a vehicle on your driveway given that the door won’t protrude outward.

All in all, roller garage doors are a great, versatile option for all kinds of homes and they have a very modern look.

Up and over garage doors

These are the archetypal garage doors. It consists of one sheet of material (be it metal, fibreglass or wood) that arcs back up into the roof space. They have a very traditional look, so if that’s what you’re going for this could be a great option. They’re also available in a wide range of materials and colours, so you can do a lot of customisation. 

Sectional garage doors

Sectional garage doors fall somewhere between roller and up and over. They are made of slats, but much larger slats than a roller garage door, so the door does still take up roof space, but doesn’t protrude out like an up and over when opening or closing. Again, sectional garage doors can look very modern and stylish and are great at keeping the heat in, so they’re a brilliant option.

Side-hinged garage doors

As the name suggests, side-hinged garage doors have a hinge on the side which allows them to open much like a normal set of doors. They are perhaps not quite as practical as other types of garage doors and they are harder to automate, but they look absolutely stunning and pair particularly well with more traditional or period properties. 

Wooden garage doors

Wooden garage doors look absolutely fantastic and have some of the best sound insulation and thermal efficiency of all garage doors, so you get a lot of different benefits! However, you need to bear in mind that wooden garage doors will require a bit more maintenance than other types of garage doors, and they tend to be a bit more expensive too, but they are worth it if this is what you have your heart set on.

Electric garage doors

Now, electric garage doors aren’t necessarily a separate type of garage door; pretty much all of the types of garage door listed above can be automated in some way or another, so if you would really like to mix and match, you absolutely can! It’s also worth noting that you can – in many cases – automate your existing garage door, so if this is something that you would like to consider, then JB Garage Doors can help!

We also offer a stunning range of composite doors and front doors.

If you’re looking for garage door services in Maidstone, Ashford, Canterbury, Rochester, Orpington, Medway or elsewhere in the county of Kent, look no further than JB Garage Doors. We have helped customers throughout the area transform their home with a new garage door, so why not give us a call? We’d be happy to offer any advice that you need.