Oklahoma is a high-wind area, and when those winds come sweeping down the plains, you want to be sure your home is prepared to handle them. Making sure your garage door has the right wind load capacity is critical for preventing major damage to your door and the rest of your home as well. Here’s why.
Understanding Garage Door Wind Load
Your garage door structure needs to take two types of load into account: the “regular” or “dead” load, which is based on the weight of the door when it’s rolled up and being supported by the surrounding door structure, and wind load, which is exerted on the door when gusts of high winds hit it. Your door’s dead load is easy to calculate since it’s based on a constant — the weight of the door. Doors are designed to bear their own dead weight; otherwise, they wouldn’t be able to stay in a raised position.
Wind load is more difficult to calculate since it can vary significantly based on the strength of the wind. What’s more, wind load affects your door in different ways. When you raise your garage door, the dead load is borne by the overhead and side structure of the door’s frame. But when high winds strike your garage door, the entire door is affected. Depending on the strength of the wind, the wind load can be a lot stronger than the dead load, and if your door isn’t designed to withstand it, it can wind up being badly damaged. Once the door is damaged, those high winds can affect the garage structure and even the structure of your home.
Wind Load Garage Door Construction
Wind speed has a big impact on a garage door’s ability to withstand increased wind loads, but there are other factors taken into consideration as well, including the overall pressure and load of the roof and other parts of the garage, the slope of the roof, and even the location of the garage in relation to the prevailing winds. When you have a garage door that’s designed for high wind loads, you can rest assured your door and your garage will be protected against strong winds. Wind load garage doors rely on a special building process that reinforces the door structure from the inside, using a grid of supports to help the door handle increased forces across its surface. At the same time, the tracks and other mounting components feature unique elements designed specifically to prevent the door from being wrenched free by major gusts of wind. All these features work together to protect not only the door, but your home as well.
At the Overhead Door Company of Oklahoma City, we offer the most advanced wind load garage door systems designed to provide you with protection and peace of mind. To learn more about wind load garage doors and how they can protect your home or business, give us a call at 405-685-2200.
