Another type of insulated garage door that is available in our industry is a polyurethane insulated garage door. This is rarely installed in the southern states.
What is a polyurethane insulated garage door? The traditional type of insulation that is in garage doors is the polystyrene insulated type. This type of garage door produces insulating R values of 6.85 to about 11.0. With this type of insulation large sheets of polystrene insulation are cut to the size of the doors and literally are place in the doors with little reinforcement. The steel back or sandwich type garage door, the insulation “floats” between the steel skins.
The polyurethane insulated garage doors provide an insulating R vaule of 12.5 to 17.54. This type of insulation is injected as a liquid between the steel skins that make up the door. As the liguid insulation is in contact with the air, it begins to expand and harden. As it does this, fills in all of the cracks and creavices and becomes semi hardened and very dense. For this reason the Polyurethane insulated doors are only available in the steel back or sandwich door. The insulation will actually adhere to the metal of the door, increasing the strength of the door. The best way I know to make a comparasion is that the polyurethane insulated door is similar to a refrigarator door. The cost of these doors can be substantially more than the traditional insulated door.
Want to read more on these types of doors? Go to this manufacturers website and read more on the construction and styles or give us a call at 770-720-7828 and visit our website at www.covenantdoors.net and follow the links.
About Polyurethane Insulated Garage Doors
Time To Start Planning For Fall
Here it is August in Atlanta , temps. reaching into the 90’s everyday with high humidty and it’s time to think of Fall? Well, yes.
I stepped out onto my back deck this morning with coffee in hand to enjoy the morning and believe it or not, I could feel the early Fall in the air. Just an ever slight coolness and smell of fall in the air. Ah, yes!
Home improvements done in the fall to ready the house for winter. Proper house prep to handle the winter months and keep the cold out does require the same amount of planning that is done in the spring to prep your house for summer. This includes sealing up places that the cold air can get in including bad siding, caulking cracks, maybe even a fresh coating of paint. This can also involve replacing your doors and windows with more energy effecient ones.
Often times when doing this planning the garage doors are overlooked.
The garage doors cover the largest opening in your house so it makes sense to include these in your planning. The obvious advantage to replacing your garage doors in the improved appearance to your home. But, the biggest advantage to replacing them is the increased energy effeciency to your home.
There are two basic types of insulated garage doors that you can choose from. An insulated door with a “vinyl backer” and then a steel back style. The vinyl back door is a metal door that is filled with a polystyrene insulation and then the part of the insulation that is exposed inside the garage is covered in a material that is simular to a real thick wallpaper. The purpose of this is just to provide a covering. These doors have a lower “R” energy rating that is between 6.0 to 9.0. The second type is the steel back. It is just like the vinyl backer doors except that the part that is facing the inside of the garage is covered in another layer of steel. This is also called a sandwich style door. These doors are tougher and more durable than the vinyl back doors and carry a much higher “R” rating that is between 10.0 – 15.0. These door also qualify for the energy tax crtedits. A better description of this can be found on our web site here. Also, a couple of the manufacturers that we use can be found here and here.
In my next blogs I will discuss the steps you should follow when getting door estimates and I will also discuss doors that are high “R” value doors that contain polyurethane insulation.
Visit our web site at www.covenantdoors.net or call us at 770-720-7828
Garage Door Companies Are Not State Regulated In Georgia
Actually I am not at all a advocate of state regulations of professions unless it is a profession that involves human health. I believe it should be up to the individual and the general public to promote the accuracy and legitimacy of companies that provide services to the public.
How can this be done? I will list the biggest ways:
1. Word of mouth or by referrals from friends and family. This is the most trusted way that companies can be screened for reputation, appearance, dependability, and value.
2. Internet or Google Searches Very reliable as Google recently but into place changes in their search results to screen out companies that were taking advantage of larger companies that had figured out how to beat “the system” by running multiple web sites with different names and phone numbers but are the same company. This is still being done so prudence on the part of the customer must be used. Key to this is to include your city in your Google search word. Example, Garage door repair Marietta, will tell Google to be specific with it’s results to you. You should avoid the top 3 results at the top of the page in the high lighted area as these often times companies that employ deceptive tactics and can be more costly. Concentrate in the results that show up in the right hand side of the page as well as the center of the page. You need to spend time and try and focus on that companies that are locally owned. When you choose a company you can easily verify that it is a legitimate locally owned company going the Secretary of State’s website located here and do a search for the company name. Remember, you want to deal directly with the companies themselves. Stay away from web sites that are referral sites some of these are: Garage Doors of America, Service Magic or any web site that predominately features “Free Estimates” in their title listings. Again, deal directly with the companies.
3. Web sites that rate companies from customers based on customer experience. The best web sites for this are Kudzu.com and Angies List.com. Both of these companies have measures in place to eliminate or minimize fraudulent or incorrect ratings and comments.
These are just three of the biggest. The most important thing I want to stress is that you must be careful when choosing a garage door company and then inviting them to come into your home.
Covenant Garage Doors is a locally owned and operated small garage door company that is big on service. For garage door repairs or service or new garage door installations, give us a call at 770-720-7828 or visit us online at www.covenantdoors.net
Today Covenant Garage Doors announced the next change in their rotating advertising themes, “Educating the Public”
This is a process by instructing the consumer and making them aware of issues that occur within the garage door industry that will help them in their decision process.
“This is done on multiple levels where we have a contact with the consumer,” James Thomas, general manager of Covenant Garage Doors was recently quoted. He continued, “Our first contact with the consumer in almost all cases is the telephone when they first call our office, secondly is the contact when the technician is at their home. Most consumers are trained through experience or word of mouth to be cautious and aware that there are a lot of unscrupulous people running business out there and these businesses are aware of this attitude of the consumer and they have developed some pretty good skills in misleading the consumer.”
Consumers are given quickly an education of the functions of the garage door or opener, expectations of these operations, and long they should last. The garage door springs are a great example of this.
“Garage door torsion springs, if engineered correctly to the door typically last about 10,000 cycles. A cycle is one open and closing of the garage door,” Thomas explained. “Under normal operation the homeowner should expect the springs to last anywhere from 7 to 10 years if they are engineered properly.”
Having this type of information is what the consumer needs to make better decisions in having their garage door repaired or replaced.
Covenant Garage Doors & Openers LLC is a Canton, Georgia based garage door company and services customers in north metro Atlanta area. They can be reached by calling 770-720-7828 or on the internet at http://www.covenantdoors.net
An independently owned and operated garage door repair, service and installation company serving most of Metro Atlanta. Covenant garage doors and openers repairs, services and installs most types of garage doors and garage door openers including the following brands : Linear, Liftmaster, Genie, Sears-Craftsman, Doorlink, Mid America, Wayne Dalton, Clopay, and others. We are accredited with the Better Business Bureau. To learn more about us, you can visit our web site http://www.covenantdoors.net, or to schedule an appointment, please call us at our office 770-720-7828. We would love to become your source for garage doors and garage door openers.
All We Do Are Garage Doors, Nothing Else.
Roofing companies doing garage doors. Electricians doing garage doors. Siding companies, plumbers, painters, handy men, and just the other day I saw a first, a fence company.
It seems that everybody these days thinks that they make it installing or repairing garage doors and openers. Today there are more companies listed for on search engines for garage doors and openers than we have ever seen and a great many of them are not companies devoted to just repairing or replacing garage doors. We see the evidence of this in other ways that often times are detrimental to the homeowner. We see this when we make a service call to a home and see terrible sloppy or incorrect work done by someone previously. When inquiring, the homeowner tells us that it was done one the other companies that do garage door work on the side or as an extra to their regular work. They then have to pay us to repair it correctly.
Covenant Garage Doors made the decision many years ago to devote ourselves to the sole practice of repairing or replacing garage doors and garage door openers. This is greatly beneficial to the homeowner as that we have all our experience to their concern, we are able to learn and keep up with product updates, and negotiate with suppliers and manufacturers, all to the help the homeowner.
When calling Covenant Garage Doors & Openers, homeowners can be assured that they will get a company that is devoted to just their concern and nothing else.
Give us a call at 770-720-7828 or visit us online at www.covenantdoors.net
The Energy Tax Have Been Extended-Sort Of.
Energy Tax Credit Changes in 2011
There is a home Energy Tax Credit this year, it’s just not half what it used to be. Literally. The 2009 and 2010 Energy Tax Credits were very generous as they were part of the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act, and were created to help spur the economy through people making home upgrades to get the credits. These tax credits were actually extended as part of the Obama tax cut deal, but now that we’ve ‘recovered’, the generosity trails off a bit in 2011. Here are the details:
- The 2011 Energy Tax Credit amount: drops to 10% of a project and $500 max. For comparison, last year’s credit capped out at 30% of a project up to a max of $1,500.
- Energy Star window tax credit: up to $200 maximum.
- Water heater tax credit (includes electric, natural gas, propane, or oil): up to $300 maximum.
- Air conditioner tax credit: up to $300 maximum.
- Insulation, doors, and roof credits: up to the $500 cap.
- Furnace tax credit (includes natural gas, propane, oil, or hot water): $150 maximum. Efficiency must be 95% (up from 90% before the extension).
The big kicker: If you’ve already taken advantage of the Energy Tax Credit, whatever you claimed in the past counts against the $500 in 2011.
So to summarize, there is a tax credit this year that can be used for certain garage doors, and each manufacturer’s web site has a summary of each. Links to the manufacturers websites can be found on our web site at http://covenantdoors.net/products.html.