Garage doors are available in a variety of sizes, and one of the first things you will normally be asked when shopping for a new door is whether or not you need a single or a double garage door and what size of door you need. Will you need two single doors, a double door, or a combination of a single and a double for a three-car garage? How many vehicles are you going to park inside the garage, and how big are they? If you are replacing your door, do not assume it is a standard size because there are many exceptions. You will need to measure your existing door to be sure, but here are some standard sizes to give you a basic reference.

For a normal home with a normal car, truck, SUV, or van parked inside, a Standard Residential Garage Door measures either 8 x 7 feet, 9 x 7 feet, or 10 x 7 feet.

• Height: Garage door heights are typically seven or eight feet tall. Older houses might have shorter doors because most people just had cars back then and not SUVs and vans with additional racks and carriers attached and oversized trucks with mirrors that extend out.
• Width: Eight or nine feet is the most common. On older homes, single doors tend to be eight feet wide, but nowadays, with the oversized vehicles, ten foot wide single doors are getting to be more common. If you need a double door, you would double the width. A double garage door measures out to 12 x 7 feet, 14 x 7 feet and 16 x 7 feet. This is designed for more than one vehicle and for bigger vehicles to fit inside your garage as well. The standard garage doors are sixteen to eighteen feet wide and some are as wide as twenty feet.

The next step in purchasing a new garage door is to determine the best style of door for your home. You will want to choose a style that blends with your home’s architecture.

• • Material of Door

Starting with the material, choose a material that will work best in your climate. Depending on your location, you will need to select steel, fiberglass, or wood overlay for your door. Relatively inexpensive yet tough, steel garage doors are considered to be the standard on most new homes and come in a variety of styles from plain to elegant.

• • Type of Door

Depending on your lifestyle and the use of the door will determine which type you should invest in. they all basically boil down to two main types, the traditional style and the carriage style.

• • 1. Traditional Raised Panel

Steel raised-panel garage doors are the most common garage doors in America. Sturdy and reliable, they have a timeless design with eight raised square panels usually and a deep wood grain overlay, and they come in a variety of designs, colors, and window options. The traditional style is more economical and requires less maintenance than its counterpart, the carriage style.

• • 1. Carriage Style

The carriage style is a more elegant style that is steel imprinted to resemble the old carriage house doors that would swing or slide open to let the owner’s carriage in or out. This style combines the elegant carriage house look with durable steel construction and overhead technology and usually has a deeper wood grain overlay than the traditional styled door. It has the mechanics of a standard garage door, but it looks like it will open outward with faux hinges and hardware. Customize your design by choosing from a large selection of color, window style, and decorative hardware options.