Barn Doors
Choosing the right door for your building isn't complicated but does
require some thought.
The doors on your building get used more than anything else hands
down.
Entrance Doors
We recommend entry doors with steel jambs. Wood jamb doors are
available for wood sided barns and garages too.
Nine lite doors and flush entry doors are both
available with steel jambs
and the difference in cost is minimal.
Large Openings
Garage doors (overhead doors) are the most convenient type of door
you can buy. They
can be opened automatically with the touch of a button. A
slider door is more durable
for farm use and will take a beating from animals better. Did
you know that not all slider
doors come with a bottom rail? Ours do!
By the way, a slider door, just like the overhead door, must be
assembled from parts, they don't ship as a unit.
The type of door you need depends on the purpose of your building,
how large an opening
you need for a given wall height, and the overall width requirement
of the door.
Here are the pro's and con's of each type of door.
Sliding Door
PRO'S
|
CON'S
|
|
♦ Durable - best suited for farm / animals
|
♦ Don't seal - lets in critters & dust
|
|
♦ Most door height for given wall height
|
♦ Not Insulated
|
|
♦ Cheap for large openings
|
♦ Can freeze up in winter
|
|
♦ Huge openings are possible
|
♦ Big doors get heavy
|
Overhead Door
PRO'S
|
CON'S
|
|
♦ Good sealing properties
|
♦ Rails require 12" (or more) vertical clearance
|
|
♦ Can be insulated
|
♦ Larger doors get expensive
|
|
♦ Easy to open (push a button)
|
♦ Quality varies (easy to buy junk)
|
|
♦ Many colors & styles available
|
|
|
♦ Less likely to freeze shut in winter
|
|
A non-insulated overhead door has no inside cover and as such is
called a
pan door. Insulated
doors include either a vinyl or steel interior panel and are called
sandwich doors.
Polystyrene insulation is a cut to fit insulation that is
glued to the interior of the door skin. Even
when cut precisely this leaves small voids in parts of the door,
thus making effective R value
less than the R value of the material used.
Polyurethane insulation is an injected product that expands
to fill voids sealing the overhead
door effectively and more closely producing effective R value that
is close to the R value of the
material utilized.
Just like insulation R value (discussed in our next tech
bulletin) the actual installed R value of an
overhead door is nothing like the published R value. A typical
steel door with an R 10-11 value
would yield an installed R value closer to 5-8, mostly due to
thermal bridging due to steel construction.
RELATED
Ideal Residential Install Guide
Ideal Commercial Install Guide
CHI Residential Install Guide
CHI Commercial Install Guide