Which Up and Over Garage Door is Best?

We have discussed this topic now for so many years and yet the answer is still the same today, when it comes to needing a standard steel up and over garage door in a standard UK size there is only one choice still. The Hormann Series 2000, introduced into the UK many years ago now, redefined the expectations and quality for a one piece up and over garage door. Before the Series 2000 you had the choice of an original Garador, Cardale, Henderson, Ellard and the occasional small manufacturer using a mismash of components to make something that did indeed go up and down but with no finesse at all and door security was not even on the agenda!

Every single up and over garage door manufactured before Hormann used mild steel components in the mechanism and hardly any parts had any form of corrosion resistance whatsoever. The springs were the main problem, all made from mild steel and relying on heavy applications of grease to prevent rusting away inside quite possibly very damp garages and of course getting rainwater splashed frequently in bad weather. Indeed the market for replacement springs, cables and other door components was enormous throughout the 80's and 90's. However when the Hormann range came along any major door distributor could see this door would not have issues with the spring or the cable or indeed the panel which was also finished to a higher standard than seen before. The door was perhaps a fair bit more expensive to begin with but as volumes took off the price could begin to adjust in the UK as this was a door manufactured in Germany. Now the Hormann standard up and over garage door is one of the major volume sold doors and now today there is only really one major competitor for the same quality and that is the reformed Garador, owned entirely by Hormann Gmbh, Germany.

The Garador has the added advantage of using state of the art manufacturing methods but on home soil, down in Somerset. They are able to offer standard and purpose made sizes and use exactly the same mechanism as Hormann, the only difference is the panel construction and to compare those can frankly get into far too much detail. The Hormann is ultimately slightly better and we will leave it at that. All single up and over garage doors are usually manufactured and fitted with either CANOPY or RETRACTABLE operating gear and the 2 videos below show the benefits of either system. All Hormann doors have all the operating gear factory fitted as standard and when the optional and recommended steel sub fixing frame is ordered that is also fitted from the factory.

Of course the Hormann Series 2000 is really quite a small range of doors compared to the complete range that Hormann has to offer. They have a full range of metric sized doors in their N80 and DF98 door ranges and this extends to very special doors like the ET500, a door capable of much more than any other door available using its design to angle the construction of bespoke timber doors using any weight of timber infill and also can be built with a pedestrian door inset into the main panel.

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Which Up and Over Garage Door is Best?