Garage Doors…They’re More Interesting Then You Think!
10 Cool Garage Door Facts
We all know that garage doors have a demanding life – full of ups and downs. But if you take a closer look, you’ll find that there is more to their story than the simple monotony of ‘open’ and ‘close.’ When you take a deeper dive, we are sure that you will agree that the largest entrance to your home is deserving of a fair amount of respect. Ok, ok, that may be a little dramatic, but hey, garage doors are our life – so what else do you expect us to say? But really – garage doors and garage door openers are pretty stinkin’ cool and we are positive that these neat factoids will make you look at your garage door in an entirely new way!
1.The average garage door opens and closes 3 to 5 times per day, approximately 1500 times per year.
2. The average life of a garage door torsion spring is about 9-10 years.
(or about 13,500 to 15,000 open and close activations in an average home). That’s a whole lot of up and down!
3. Garage doors have a typical life span of about 20 years, or potentially much longer if maintained properly.
(Lubricating your door is one of the key things you can do to prolong the life of your garage door.)
4. More than half of all homeowners (55%) use their garage door as their home’s main entryway.
5. 47% of people surveyed by Wall Street Journal said “Parking” is the most important function of a garage. In a related statistic, 1 in 4 homeowners say their garage is too cluttered to allow parking cars in them, and 1 in 3 homeowners report that they are embarrassed to leave their garage doors open.
6. Compared to other home improvement projects, a new garage door yields the highest return on investment (97.5%) when selling your home.
(Annual Cost vs. Value survey by Remodeling Magazine.)
7. The first garage door opener controls were not the hand-held devices we use now. They were wired buttons, usually mounted on a post within reach of the driver.
8. Garage doors have played a key role in launching several major American companies. Check out all of these incredible companies that began in a garage: Apple, Google, Disney, Amazon, Harley Davidson, Hewlett-Packard, Maglite and Mattel.
9. Companies are not the only things that have gotten their start in garages. Certainly the garage played a critical role in the launch of these most famous bands: Nirvana, Metallica, and The Beatles – all of which started in their garage.
10. The word “garage” comes from the French word garer, which is a place to keep horses. The original garages were separate structures that had once been used as stables and carriage houses to shelter horses and carriages. It was years later before they started to be connected to the main structure of the house.
11. The earliest garage doors swung out like a traditional barn door. This led to a lot of problems. The doors were subjected to heavy wear and tear. The garage door hinges would creak, screws would get bent and eventually fall out. Residents living in areas like Golden, CO and Lakewood, CO would have to shovel snow away from the door in order to get it open. These Denver area garage door facts might not be for you but even if you never saw snow, even the most minor obstruction could stop a homeowner from opening and accessing their garage.
12. Later, sliding tracks were invented for garage doors which also allowed more versatile garage door designs. Garage doors could now slide sideways, across the front of the garage, which was an improvement, but it meant that the garage had to be at least double the width of the door. Once sectional doors were developed, the sliding doors could fold around a corner and the garage didn’t need to be much wider than the door itself.
13. In 1921 (only a little over 100 years ago!), C.G. Johnson invented the first upward-lifting garage door. Five years later, Johnson invented the electric garage door opener, aimed at helping those who had trouble lifting the heavy garage doors.