Our garage doors were in a terrible state.
The exterior handle dates them from a time before automatic door openers. The garage door guy told me they were at least 40 years old.
Look how dirty and wretched they were! The panels are actually made of wood (and glass): something else that dated them. They were extremely heavy, and when we lost power and had to open them manually it was a real chore.
Decades of snow and rain had started the wood rotting, and in parts gaps had formed. It was long past time to replace them! Today was the day.
The garage door guy turned up right on time at 8 am, and half an hour later he and his assistant had removed all the old hardware. Doors, springs, rails and weather seal: all gone. The noise was ungodly, but it was impressive how fast they worked given both were older than me.
Installing the new doors took much longer, and as you can see they came with shiny new rails. Only the motors remained from the old installation, although he opened and repaired the gears in one of them.
Interestingly the spring for the new doors is compact and installed above, which both takes much less space and is much safer. The doors are also quieter than the old ones.
And here they are. They’re metal, insulated and have sturdy plastic windows. They look great and I expect will outlive us. And no exterior handles 🙂