Fully Operational Showroom: Sweet Briar Industrial estate, Norwich, NR3 2BS
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To start the history of the garage door, we must date the earliest garage. If we define garage as a storage place for cars, then the earliest garage must have belonged to Frenchman Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot, who invented the first self-propelled steam powered vehicle in 1756. However, if we count carts and chariots as vehicles we can go back significantly further. There is evidence that Proto Indo-Europeans were using Ox carts 5000 years ago. Where they stored them and whether those stores had doors is a mystery whose secret archaeology has yet to unveil.
The Single Panel Door
Fast forward to a time when the car and garage are firmly established. The year is 1902 and you are flicking through a Cornell Ironworks Catalog. Inside you see advertised a ‘float over door’. This may be the first reference to a garage door that is any different from a barn door. This single panel steel door could swing up and over your vehicle so that it lay along your garage ceiling when in the open position.
A Problem Solved: The Development of Sectional Panels and Roller Doors
The obvious problem with the single panel door was that it required the space immediately in front of the garage to be unoccupied in order to open and close the door. This was a consequence of the jamb/hinge mechanism that it used to get the door from the vertical closed position to the horizontal open position. If a car was parked in front of the closed garage door, it could not be opened.
The problem was solved by the introduction first of sectional panelled doors and then of roller doors. These types of garage door could be opened without an incursion into the space immediately in front of the garage.
Modern Improvements
The three modern styles, along with the traditional side-hinged ‘barn door’, are responsible for the lion’s share of the 21st Century garage door industry. However, they have come a long way from the single sheet of steel advertised in the Cornell Ironworks Catalog. Modern garage doors can be made of lightweight aluminium insulated with polyurethane foam and they can be fully automated, allowing you access to your garage at the touch of a button.
Modern garage doors, like this Warm Protect roller door, come with a number of advantages.To talk to one of our experts about the best kind of garage door for your property, call us on 01603 787069. To see our garage doors in action, call into our showroom on Sweet Briar Industrial Estate, Norwich.
