Installing a garage door with your own hands is, of course, a difficult task, but doable. Before proceeding with any work, it is worth deciding on the type of structure that needs to be installed. To date, there are several options, each of which is fully justified and has its own advantages.
Gate options
The choice of one of the options directly depends on financial capabilities, as well as on the needs of the owner of the object.
- It is almost impossible to mount a lifting-sectional garage door with your own hands, since the design is quite complicated. This object consists of a continuous canvas, which is made up of refracting sections that go under the ceiling of the garage. The basis for this design are transmission guides, as well as spring mechanisms. It is precisely because of the complexity of installing these elements that specialists are required to install such gates.
- Installing swing garage doors with your own hands, on the contrary, is one of the most simple and common activities. This design is also different in that it does not require the purchase of any expensive materials for work. The frame for the object is usually assembled from an ordinary steel angle, and ordinary sheet iron is used as a skin. Ready-made gates are distinguished by reliability and ease of operation.
- You can often come across a photo of a do-it-yourself garage door. If earlier it was said about lifting-sectional, then there is also a lifting-turning structure. Such objects consist of a sash, which, during opening, moves rotationally with respect to a horizontal axis. This rotation occurs until the sash reaches the place under the garage ceiling. The advantage is that such gates do not need a lot of space, however, their installation is rather complicated, and installation is appropriate only inside a heated room.
Features of assembling different designs
Currently, do-it-yourself garage door installation is most often the assembly of a swing structure. Of the materials for work, only steel corners, profiles, as well as sheets of iron will be required. With all this at hand, as well as some metalworking skills, you can easily make swing gates from start to finish on your own.
Do-it-yourself installation of lifting swing garage doors is possible if the owner is familiar with the basics of mechanics or has an engineering education. However, in the building materials market, you can purchase a ready-made copy, which you needjust install in the garage. As mentioned earlier, sectional doors will deliver the greatest number of problems and troubles. Do-it-yourself garage door installation of this type will lead to large financial costs. In addition, due to the complexity of the mechanism, it is likely that it will not work to make them the first time so that they work properly, and therefore it is better to just buy them ready-made than build them yourself.
Design
Based on the foregoing, it follows that it is best to do the installation of swing gates for the garage with your own hands.
As a project, you can use both a simplified version drawn on A4 paper, and a full-fledged drawing printed on whatman paper. Naturally, at the same stage it is necessary to determine the dimensions of the structure. Here you need to consider that there are minimum restrictions. For example, in width, the minimum allowable size is equal to the width of the car itself plus 0.6 meters. As practice shows, the most common width parameter is 3 meters. The largest optimal and maximum size is 5 meters. If we talk about assembling garage doors with our own hands, the photo of which will be presented, it is also worth noting that the height is selected based on the size of the machine. The average for passenger cars is 2.2 meters. If a minibus is used as a vehicle, for example, then the average increases to about 2.5 meters.
The simplest designswing gate includes a frame that serves as a contour located along the perimeter of the entrance to the garage, as well as two wings. The sashes will be attached to the hinges. It is recommended to use a steel corner with a shelf width of 65 mm as the main material for the manufacture of the frame. To strengthen the sash frame, it is recommended to use a rectangular steel profile, as well as a corner, but with a width of 50 mm.
In the photo of the garage door, made by hand, it can be seen that on the inside the product is also sheathed with such material as sheet steel with a thickness of 3 mm. As for the loops, they must be of an external reinforced type. Then, based on the selected sizes and materials, you can go to the building materials store and purchase everything you need.
Start of work. Frame
Installing a garage door with your own hands, of course, begins with the fact that you need to make a frame. It is worth noting here that the assembly of the frame is carried out in parallel with the stretching of the front wall. When the height of the masonry is 0.5 meters, you can switch to a full installation of the gate, and then return to the masonry.
As mentioned earlier, for the manufacture of the frame you will need steel corners with 65 mm shelves, several steel strips with a width of 30 mm and a thickness of 3 mm. To increase the reliability of fastening this element in the opening, it is recommended to have reinforcing bars on hand. To successfully complete all the work, you will need tools such as a welding machine, grinder, tape measure,level.
Frame construction steps
At the first stage, it is necessary, using a grinder, to cut the steel corners into 8 parts with different lengths. 4 blanks must fit the height of the opening, and the other 4 - in width. It is important to note here that you can cut off exactly according to the specified dimensions, or you can make them larger by 100 mm. If everything is clear with the first option, then in the case of the second, everything is somewhat more complicated. How to make a garage door with your own hands in this version? In this situation, the side of the corner that will be internal to the opening is cut according to the drawing, and the outer surface and outer parts are made in the form of strips. In this case, they will have to go beyond the desired dimensions by 50 mm on each side, and not 100 mm on one side.
Next, you need to find a perfectly flat place and lay out all the available parts at an obtuse angle. In addition, the angle between the corner pieces is checked with a steel angle, it must be 90 degrees.
In order to successfully assemble the frame, it is necessary to weld all the corner pieces together. You can overlap the parts by overlapping the ends of the shelves on top of each other.
The last stage is the grinding of all irregularities or build-ups that may have formed during the welding process. This is necessary, as the sashes must fit snugly against the frame, and the welds may prevent this.
Working with sashes
In order to successfully make a sash frame,which will be mounted without problems in the main frame, you need to make it slightly smaller than the base. As a material for assembly, you can use the same steel corner or rectangular rolled elements. As for the sequence of work, it is as follows.
- The first stage is cutting the raw material into 8 segments. It must be remembered that two doors will be installed. The 4 elements must be 15 mm smaller than the total height of the frame. This must be done so that the sash frame can easily enter the frame. Another 4 elements should have a size equal to half the total width of the opening minus 30 mm. The gap is left for the same purpose.
- Next, you need to weld the structure together, for which you can, as in the first case, lay all the parts on a flat surface. However, there is another option in which you can use a ready-made form of the main frame. Using the second option ensures that the angles between the parts will be much easier to observe, and it will be easier to eliminate possible flaws.
- To successfully complete the assembly of a frame for automatic garage doors with your own hands or for ordinary ones, you need not only to weld all the parts together. Quite often, experts recommend making an additional connection. Another rectangular profile is used as such a connection, which is installed in the center of the main frame.
Sash products
Sheet steel is used as gate leaves. The reliability of the design willdepend on the thickness of the metal. This parameter must be at least 2 mm or more.
- Next, you need to cut out two wings from this material. Here you need to be very careful with the dimensions. Firstly, the height of the sash must be 30 mm higher than the garage opening. As for the width, one of the elements should be less than 10 mm, and the other, on the contrary, more than 20 mm.
- As for welding the canvas and the frame, there are several nuances. The sashes must be welded so that at the lower and upper points of the frame they extend beyond the edges by 20 mm. The part that will open second should be 10 mm narrower than the base. This must be done so that the first sash, which will be 20 mm larger, can fit snugly against the second.
- The last stage is the welding of reinforced loops. The lower part must be fixed by welding directly on the garage frame itself. The upper hinges are already welded to the gate leaves.
After all the work is done, it's worth doing one last check. For this, ready-made sashes are stacked with loops to the sky and an inspection is carried out. If no defects are noticed, then we can assume that the work has been completed successfully and you can proceed to the installation.
Product installation
After the sashes and the frame for the swing garage doors have been made with your own hands, you can proceed to the installation. It is worth noting that the outer gate frame is installed first, and then the inner one. The installation process itselfcarried out in this order:
- First, you need to use the level to check the verticality and horizontality of structures.
- The frames must be connected to each other with metal strips, the width of which is 40 mm. They are fixed by welding in increments of 0.6 meters.
- After that, you need to start building the front wall. Bricks should go into the empty space that has formed between the frames. In the course of increasing the height of the wall, it is additionally fastened to the garage door with the help of reinforcing pieces. On the one hand, they are welded to the frame, on the other hand, they are embedded in the wall. The length of each reinforcement should be about 0.3 meters. Up to 3 pieces of such fittings can be installed vertically.
- After the masonry wall reaches its highest point, it is necessary to lay the top floor beam.
After all the steps are completed, you can check the operation of the gate.
Description of lifting and turning structure
Do-it-yourself up-and-over garage doors can also be installed. They are considered the next in complexity after swing. As for the benefits that such a gate can give, they are as follows:
- Cracking such a structure is quite difficult.
- These gates open without much effort.
- If you follow the assembly technology and correct installation, then such gates have a huge service life.
- Installing such a gate will save more space.
- Presentthe possibility of mounting in a variety of openings.
However, this design has several drawbacks, due to which the popularity of the product does not reach the first place. Firstly, the installation of such a structure is quite complicated. Secondly, if assembled incorrectly, any mechanical parts can be overloaded, and they will quickly fail. The last disadvantage is the high thermal conductivity, due to which it can be quite cold inside the garage in winter.
As for the design of this product, it consists of the following elements. As in the case of swing, this is a frame, which is the main part of the entire product. The rest of the parts will be attached to it. Swing type sash, which will be installed in a steel frame. It is worth noting that there is only one sash here. It will be necessary to install a return spring, which will be responsible for returning the gate to its place in manual mode. The last element is the mechanism itself, which is responsible for turning the sash.
How to make DIY folding garage doors
The choice of folding garage doors is most often justified where there is simply no place to install conventional swing products. As for the advantages of this type of product, they are as follows:
- Compact. As mentioned earlier, such gates do not require much space. To be more precise, they do not require additional space either inside or outside in order to fully function.
- Ease of installation lies in the fact that you can install such gates "accordion" from any sideopening.
- The design of these gates is designed so that the main load falls on the walls, the roof is practically not loaded.
- Easy to use. It is worth noting here that such gates are much easier to open in winter, since they do not require preliminary cleaning of the territory, like swing gates.
A distinctive design feature that allows the gate to operate in this mode is the presence of special panels. These panels are connected to each other using some kind of flexible material, such as rubber or other dense but flexible fabric.
