Installing a New Garage Door

Our almost 30-year old garage doors were starting to get warped (note the "smile" at the bottom), the strut bar cracked, and other issues ... so rather than wait until we HAD to replace it, we decided to do it proactively. After some research and driving around various neighborhoods looking at garage doors, we decided on a "plank" design - a CHI Wood Grain Model 2347 in Dark Oak with top-level windows to let some light into the garage.

We had to replace the garage door openers since they were from before a IR-beam safety system was required ... and ended up getting Liftmaster 8550's. The belt drive system is really quiet - I can't hear it go up when the wife comes home! It's a pretty nifty system including Wi-Fi capability that allows you to check status, get notifications (so I do get notified when the wife shows up!) and even control your garage doors - hopefully hackers on the Internet won't take over and make it go up & down! ;-)

We went with Laughlin Garage Door (James at 303-884-6222 was great) and his brother Will did a super job with the install as seen in the time-lapse videos below. As with most home improvement projects, this will result in some other upgrades such as light fixtures and maybe even some repainting.

One very minor issue is over time, the garage door got a bit noisier. I called up James and he stopped by ... and "solved" it by giving the door a yank to the West ... which moved it about an inch. He said that some garage doors just "walk" ever so slightly a certain direction, so this re-centers it.

Before/After of the Garage Door at various times of the day

Garage door before/after in the morning light

Setting up GarageDoorCam that morning - was "BirdCam" until the night before

Time-lapse videos from the GrassCam and GarageDoorCam! ;-)

Sequence of before/after pictures of the garage door

Use the controls to play, step, pause, slow-down, and/or speed-up the animation.

Frame Rate

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Even the neighborhood Fox likes the new garage doors! ;-)

After this project, I had a roof/patio leak fixed and put Composite Decking on the patio - click for BIG!

I could have done a better job cutting the boards, but given the tight "workspace", it was difficult with 12' & 16' long boards. The variance was less than an 1/8", which is less than 0.1% ... so not too shabby

I wanted to use fasteners (rather than deck screws) for a "clean" look, but it was a super tight fit with the 9 boards - just another 1/4" would have made it a LOT easier. I started away from the house with start/stop fasteners on the ends and used a prybar to insure the other boards were as close as possible. The "challenge" was the last board next to the house. The easy solution would have been to use deck screws just on that to keep the ends down and prevent it from moving. I ended up kludging things by hacksawing the two-sided fasteners (everywhere but the ends) so the only the "2nd" board was clamped down. I then installed start/stop fasteners at the ends next to the wall, and slid the board in by going at an angle and then dropping it - needed a little nudge to get seated. Finally, I used a prybar to move the last board horizontally the last 1/4" against the wall ... and was able to wedge a dremel'ed fastener to clamp both boards at end. I then repeated that on the other side ... and screwed 'em down. Hopefully I'll never have to "open" up the deck ... but if I do, the image below shows how to do it! ;-) Note that the decking is Trex "Saddle" - very convenient that it was available in-store at Lowe's.