The Benefits of Having Garage Door Windows
After style, color, size and construction materials, wondering whether you should get windows in your garage door can seem like just another item on a long list. If you already have a windowless garage door, you may have wondered what it would be like to make the switch.
To help you make a decision, we thought we’d put together a list of benefits of having garage door windows. We think you’ll find at least a couple of points that you may not have considered.
Garage Door Window Benefits
1. Let the Sunshine In
The first and perhaps most obvious benefits of windows in the garage door are that it will make your garage brighter during the day. Not only is a brighter garage easier to work in, but it can have other benefits too. Homeowners tend to keep well-lit places tidier. So having windows in your garage can help you keep it more organized.
2. Improve Your Home’s Curb Appeal
Your garage door is the largest single visual element of your home when viewed from the street. In other words, it has a major effect on your home’s curb appeal. But that effect goes beyond the fact that windows are more aesthetically pleasing than a solid, windowless door. You can choose windows for your garage door that match the windows elsewhere in your home, like those in your front door. So, not only do windows look better, but the right windows can unify the entire look of your home’s exterior.
3. Can Help You Use the Garage for Other Purposes
Want to build a pro workshop in the garage? Or how about your very own home gym? Arts & crafts room for the kids? Man cave? In any case, the windows in your garage door are often the only windows into the garage. Even while you only get daylight for part of the day, it’s always nice to have it when your garage isn’t just a garage.
You can retrofit an existing garage door with window panels or choose from a wide variety of new doors with windows or even doors made entirely of tempered glass and aluminum frames. Call Markham Garage Doors at 905-472-9178 to learn more.
How to Protect the Most Expensive Thing in Your Garage
Unless you’ve managed to squeeze a cabin cruiser into your garage, your car is probably the most expensive thing in it.
While the general feeling is that, once it’s in the garage, your car is ‘protected’, the reality can be quite different.
From something falling off a shelf and damaging the car, to scratching it as you work around it, or the kids leaning their bikes against it, there are many ways that the garage can be a bit of a hostile environment for your car.
So, while your garage protects your car from things like sun and snow, there are other hazards in the garage that can actually make it quite damaging to your car.
Protect Your Car in the Garage
The following are just some of the ways you can safeguard your car while it’s in the garage.
1. Close the Garage Door
In summer, it’s easy to just leave the garage door open some days because you’re in and out of the garage so often. In winter, you might open the door to warm-up the car before you leave for the day. Sometimes you might stop the garage door opener before the door closes completely.
It’s no surprise, but a car insurance company published information that shows open garage doors make it more likely that your car will be stolen.
To put it another way, the old movie “Gone in 60 Seconds” had it right. It takes less than a minute for a thief to drive off in your car. In fact, some estimates put it down to 10 seconds!
2. Park in the Right Spot
Parking your car in the garage as far away from hazards as possible, and even not hitting anything as you park it, goes a long way to protecting it. But that can be tough to do when it’s difficult to know exactly how close you are to objects.
One of the most popular, and simple, ways to park your car perfectly every time is the “tennis-ball-from-the-ceiling” trick. It begins by finding the perfect place for your car to come to a stop while parking it in the garage. You may need someone outside the car to help you.
Once you find the spot, hang a tennis ball from the ceiling so that, as you park, it would contact the windshield in line with your rearview mirror. Every time you park, when the tennis ball touches the windshield at a point in line with the mirror, you know the car is perfectly aligned front and back and side-to-side. And if it doesn’t quite line up every time, you’ll know just how far off you are and can decide whether that’s good enough.
Or you can try a more 21st-century approach with garage door opener manufacturer Liftmaster’s laser-guided parking assist accessory.
3. Stop Dinging Your Doors
Even if you find the perfect parking spot to minimize damage to your car, you still might need to be careful when you open the doors. If not, the door can hit the garage wall or another object in the garage. You can attach pool noodles on the wall or objects the doors might hit to stop them from being damaged.
Needless to say, it’s worth doing everything you can to protect the most expensive thing in your garage. If you’re looking for a more secure garage door or garage door opener, call us at 905-472-9178 or contact us online.
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