Continous Curtain or Slats

I am to the point of needing to install doors. Opening is 12w x 10h. Some of the original quotes are no longer being honored. That said, I've got some new quotes but when I went to look at the doors they were rather flimsy (continous curtain).

I am leaning hard on getting the slat doors but they are SPENDY! Nearly 1/3 more than curtains. Repair is also spendy i.e. $2.50/ft for each slat damaged. If one damages 10 slats I could replace whole curtain for ~$500. I do plan on installing bolards (PVC filled with concrete) to protect door frame.

What do you have on your shop? Pros or Cons of either? Thanks as always,
ShepFL

• Shop Pics

What we put in our shop was three Wayne Dalton, insulated [R-14.96] TS-200 WD Overhead doors. With a 18' wall we went with a 15' high doors [2 @ 14' & 1 @ 16' wide]. This left us with aprox. 35" of headroom above the framed door openings. PVC; head & jam seal, 3" steel jams, Track W/15" radius, sold shaft; 1", Chain hoist; 3 to 1 ratio, extra pusher springs [1pr. each door].

The 15" track radius left enough room in the 35" space above the door as not to interfer with the low-bay lights. Also extentions were available if we choose to hang the door closer to the ceiling.

Btw: The 14' & 16' have a 4' wall between them, 4-5' out from this wall on the inside we placed the mounting base for a Jib Crane. This will get built someday ;>] which will cover the area near the doors & allow an aprox. 300 degree swing to reach outside of the doors. Oh and the third door was placed inside to section off part of the shop.

To address your question - Sales staff I bought bldg. from said my shop did not have option of sliding doors (what I originally wanted). Said I had to go with roll ups. If you know of a way I can do this I am all EARs.

Looking back he probably wanted me to buy doors from them but they were WAY EXPENSIVE!! Thus, I now have my door jambs and headers in place, tin cut to fit et. all. Oh yea! did I mention doors need to be wind loaded to 120 MPH!! New FL construction code, YET I see pole barns going up everywhere with sliding doors. Go figure.

The wind loading is a by-product of Hurricane Andrew, the gift that keeps on giving even retroactively. Sorry for RANT but this is one project I will be glad to see completed!

I'm not really big on sliding doors myself because they never seem to seal well or keep wind, dust, rain, snow, ect out either. If you do want to go with a slider, I'd strongly suggest getting one with both upper and lower tracks. They are bit more work to keep the lower track clean but are much nicer than a hanging door. Nothing PO's me more than listening to rattling doors and such on a metal building.

Personally, I would go with a regular sectional overhead door. Roll-up doors are a pain in the @$$ and very costly. They are even more costly as time goes on because you get one little ding and they don't work right. Parts are not only pricy but very hard to install as well.

Don't know if you have a dealer in your area but Raynor makes excellent doors. 16 of them at oil facility I do a lot of work at and all are holding up very well to extreme use and some serious abuse. Several of them have been waffled by trucks and repair costs are reasonable. Got a 12' x 12' on my shop for over 8 years with no problems at all. There is a lot of options for track design and placement, best bet is to talk to a dealer in your area and have them look at the application. Only suggestion I have is get yourself a commercial duty opener with it. Power ones are nice but even a hand operated chain drive is far better than pushing and pulling. Just got around to putting a hand operated one on my door a couple weeks ago and I don't know why I did not do it when I put the door in...

I put a link to Raynor below, take a look at them and see what you think. I would suggest going with a commercial door as they are not bad in price and are well worth the little bit of extra money.

• Raynor Doors

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