When is a garage door due for replacement?
Age alone doesn't decide it. Steel-Line says a roller door with proper maintenance can last 15-20 years or more, and B&D tests its Roll-A-Doors for 20,000 to 30,000 up-and-down cycles. A worn spring, a frayed cable or a tired motor on a sound door is a repair, not a new door.
Replacement starts to make sense when the door itself is the problem: the part that is failing is the curtain or the panels, or the fixes keep coming and each one only shifts the fault somewhere else.
Signs replacement is the better call
- Rust has gone through the curtain or panels, rather than sitting on the surface
- A panel is creased or split, and nobody can match it any more
- It is an old tilt door with its springs out in the open, within reach of children
- The door stays heavy by hand after a service: B&D's Smart Pro manual says it should need no more than 20kg of force at the bottom rail
- You are in a cyclone area with an older door: the Queensland Government says many doors built before the current standards were not reinforced and could not withstand a severe storm's wind pressures
- The garage has changed use, and you now want insulation, a quieter door or a different look
What can replace an old tilt door
| Room it needs | Worth knowing | |
|---|---|---|
| B&D Flex-A-Door | Sits behind the opening on a curving track, and B&D offers it for restricted headroom | Made as a tilt door replacement. It can suit arches, and a car can park right up against it |
| Sectional door | 290mm above the opening on Steel-Line doors, down to 150mm on a low headroom rear mount | Lies along the ceiling when open, so check for lights, storage and beams |
| Roller door | 430mm to 510mm above the opening on Steel-Line's A and AA series | A low lintel rules this one out quickly |
| A new tilt door | Steel-Line says tilt doors suit tight side room or headroom | Swings out over the driveway, and Steel-Line says it may not be sold in some regions |
Replacing an old tilt door
A garage built around a one-piece tilt door can have less room above and beside the opening than a modern door wants. That is why the measure matters more here than the catalogue. The tilt door page covers keeping one running if you aren't ready to swap it.
The driveway is the upside. B&D says a tilt door protrudes forward as it opens, so a car parked close has to move first. A door that travels up behind the opening ends that.
Roller door replacement
A new roller door in a roller door opening is the most direct swap, because the room it needs is already there. Check the size series, though. Steel-Line's A series suits openings 750mm to 3430mm wide and its AA series 3435mm to 5500mm, while B&D makes its Series 1 Roll-A-Doors up to 3150mm wide.
Doors in the north are the exception. In the street surveys after Cyclone Yasi, the Cyclone Testing Station found 29% of roller doors damaged, and many came out of their side guides first. If your home is in a high wind area, ask about a wind rated door instead of the same door again. The report also says the guides and the structure behind them must carry the load, so ask what the fixings are going into.
Measure the opening, not the old door
- Width and height of the opening itself. A tilt door and a sectional door can sit in it quite differently
- Headroom from the top of the opening to the ceiling or the lowest beam
- Side room on both walls, since one tight side can rule a door out
- Depth back into the garage, up to whatever a sectional door's tracks would hit
- What is in the way: lights, shelves, a roof access hatch or anything hung from the ceiling
Keeping the motor or replacing it
Openers are sold by door type. B&D's Power Drive is for roller doors, while its Smart, Smart Pro and Secure are for sectional doors, so moving from one door type to another normally means a different motor. If the type stays the same, the motor may stay too, as long as it is rated for the new door's weight and works with it.
The power point can move as well. A roller door opener usually sits at one side of the opening, and a sectional door's sits on a rail in the middle of the ceiling. B&D's Smart Pro manual wants an earthed 3 pin power point within an arm's length of the opener, so the one you have may end up too far away. A new one is a job for a licensed electrician.
An older motor is a fair reason to change anyway. Steel-Line calls the reversing feature only a precaution and strongly recommends the optional photo eye, so ask what an old motor is missing. B&D's 10-year Total Confidence Warranty also needs a B&D door and opener bought and installed together. Replacing a motor has more.
Approvals, licences and a wider opening
A door in the same opening and a wider opening are different jobs. Tasmania's building rules list fitting a roller door as low risk work, but that covers the door only, not making an opening in a wall. In the ACT, the exemption for external door alterations stops at a 2m horizontal span. If the opening is changing, ask before anything is ordered.
For the door itself, QBCC says building work in Queensland valued over $3,300 needs a QBCC licence. On bushfire-prone land, B&D says seals retrofitted to an existing door have not been tested by the CSIRO, so talk through a replacement door with your building surveyor. Our state pages cover the rest.
Taking an old door down is not a DIY job
An old door keeps its spring force until someone trained releases it. Steel-Line warns never to loosen any fastener on a sectional door's spring assembly or bottom cable fixtures, because the door could fall. On a roller door it says loosening the U-bolts can release the spring and bring the door down with force.
What you can do, and what to leave
You can
- Take the measurements in the list above
- Find the make and model on the door and the opener
- Clear the garage and move the car on the day
- Pull the paperwork for the old door, if you still have it
Leave to a door specialist
- Releasing the springs and taking down the old door
- The final measure and the order
- Fixing the new door, setting the springs and balancing it
- Refitting or swapping the motor
- A new power point, by a licensed electrician
What we would do
Settle the motor before you settle the door. Ask the door specialist to write on the quote whether the opener stays, moves or is replaced, and whether the power point moves with it. That one line stops most of the surprises on a replacement job.