Winter is coming! If you are a "Game of Thrones" fan like we are, you might feel extra panic about this statement. But for anyone with a garage, you are likely seeing a to-do list building at that statement! It means we need to clean out the garage of the summer toys and equipment (check out this blog for more on that) and make way for the cars to avoid the winter snow and frigid temperatures here in the North East. It also likely triggers the reminder of increased energy bills and chilly mornings.

Every single Fimbel door we manufacture comes fully insulated because our commitment to the environment and to your satisfaction is built in. The garage can have a large impact on the overall efficiency and comfort of the home. This aspect is often overlooked when considering the home's needs. While every aspect of your garage should be insulted: the walls, the ceiling, and the garage door, we are naturally going to focus on the garage door.

Since 71% of Americans use their garage as the primary entrance to their home, it makes sense that this transition into the home ought to be a comfortable one. Entering the garage with the car, closing the garage door, and then proceeding to the home creates what's called a vestibule effect. This small action of entering the garage and closing the door prior to entering the home allows the unwanted temperature to remain outside. An insulated door allows for a smoother transition from the temperatures of the outdoors and the conditioned climate of the home's interior.

Even if the garage is insulated and drywalled, utilizing an uninsulated garage door will leave the garage cold. Regardless of whether or not you spend a lot of time in your garage, the positive impact of an insulated garage door could potentially add more than 20 degrees to a garage with an outside temperature of 20 degrees. Starting a car that is 40+ degrees is far more appealing than starting a car resting at 20 degrees.

While creature comforts are lovely and certainly appeal to homeowners on those chilly winter mornings, the benefits of an insulated garage and garage door go beyond comfort. With proper insulation homeowners can save up to 20% on their electric bills and truly bring energy efficiency to their home.

If what you have read so far isn't enough to convince you, let's look at some additional benefits of an insulated garage door.

1. First things first - back to the creature comforts - when a garage door is insulated properly, you should be getting a more aesthetically pleasing interior to the garage. We offer a high impact, pre-finished white interior. We also offer to add our ⅜' Versatex (smooth, solid vinyl) to the interior to bring elegance to your garage.
2. An insulated door will reduce noise during opening and closing. You shouldn't hear the rattle and transition through the track system as the sections will be more solid and not only prevent but absorb a great deal of residual noise.
3. While the door is closed, an insulated door will control noise entering and leaving the garage space. The insulation acts as a barrier to capture the sound, so if your kids are forming a rock band, the neighbors will appreciate the reduced noise.
4. As the technology of our cars and their batteries continue to change, we know that they function better in a climate controlled garage. Starting your morning off right will be easier with an insulated door.
5. It helps at resale. We know, thanks to Remodeling Magazine's 2020 report, replacing your garage door with a quality high-end door is a slam dunk on the ROI (Return of Investment) at resale with a shocking 94.5%.
6. The average age of today's US homebuyer is 47. Which means that many homebuyers today are Gen X and Millennial with a tendency toward sustainability and efficiency. Offering this aspect as an element of your 'smart' home adds value.

For the most part, garage door manufacturers use a foam to insulate their garage doors, but this isn't enough. To get the most efficiency out of your garage door, it is important to understand more about R-Value, making the door weather tight, and insulating the glass sections.

R-Value measures the thermal efficiency (resistance to heat flow or temperature conduction of a product). It is used to represent energy efficiency and stands for Resistance Value and is represented in imperial units. It is calculated by the thickness and physical properties of the product. Simply put, a garage door with sufficient R-Value will keep heat inside the garage during winter and cool air inside during summer. Read more in our recent blog on R-Value.

But this isn't enough. Since the garage door will open and close and must remain mobile around all four sides, it is critical to maintain the perimeter weather-stripping and the bottom seal. Additionally, purchasing a door, such as a Fimbel door, with interlocking tongue and groove sections is very valuable. This design reduces the temperature and the weather from penetrating the garage.

The last suggestion we have to maximize your garage efficiency is to utilize insulated glass on any glass sections of your garage door. Failing this will not only cause issues with the temperature control, but it will also likely cause condensation in conditioned garages. For more on this, read our blog on condensation.

We have been manufacturing garage doors since our great-grandfather began his business in 1924. In that time we have made and insulated doors in many ways, but we know the value of protecting your home, your assets, and your finances. We are here to help you find satisfaction in your home.

Combining innovative materials and technology with classic craftsmanship, we have built two dynamic platforms upon which you can design your dream door. Our American Legends is built on vinyl-coated steel and adorned with smooth, solid overlays in your design choice. The Estate Collection, including our Euro-Dor, Presidential, and Roaring Twenties Series, offers a blank slate built on a hand-crafted wood frame and laminated with smooth, solid material to design nearly any style you wish.

To learn more, please find a dealer by using our dealer locator. We look forward to offering you more! 

Over our 97 years in manufacturing, we have learned that condensation can be an issue in many garages. While many associate the presence of condensation with a manufacturing defect, it is important to understand the issues surrounding condensation and how it may impact your garage and garage door.

Condensation occurs when the moisture in the air is in contact with a cold surface and water droplets accumulate. It often occurs in a warm garage with high humidity, which is the concentration of water in the air, and a colder surface such as the glass section of your garage door. Essentially, it is characteristic of a warm, humid garage and a cooler garage door surface due to a colder exterior temperature. The lower the outside humidity, the faster the interior humidity will be drawn out causing noticeable droplets. People often assume the windows are leaking, but in reality, it is quite likely condensation.

More garages today are conditioned, often heated, as opposed to garages of the past, so this issue is unfamiliar to most. Understanding the impact of a conditioned garage and the environmental region can preserve the longevity of your door and the garage. Consistent condensation can cause structural damage to various aspects of the garage and the garage door.

Unlike the entry door to the home, the garage door will not maintain the same controlled conditions as the garage holds more humidity and additional variables than the entry door.

Condensation can present itself from a variety of conditions. The geographic and environmental impact can play a part if additional moisture is brought in regularly from wet or snow-covered cars or boats. Use of a humidifier or refrigerator or freezer units can contribute to more condensation. It is not only what is in your garage that can impact the humidity and condensation. It can even present more prominently when the laundry room is located nearby the garage. While there are many other factors to consider such as the ventilation and vapor barriers in the garage, we have solutions!

Now that you are educated on how condensation presents itself, we have some suggestions to mitigate the situation. We highly encourage the use of insulated glass on a glass section of your garage door. This decision alone can remedy the issue of condensation on your garage door. The insulated glass helps to balance out the humidity and temperature ratio and reduce condensation.

We also suggest utilizing quality weather-tight seals around the door, wiping snow and rain from cars, managing the appliances and heating systems, and opening the garage doors at intervals to balance out the humidity and temperature. If condensation persists, we suggest reaching out to your home builder or find an HVAC professional with whom to consult.

You have a lot of options in the market today, but your best bet is a Fimbel door. Using advanced materials and technology together with classic craftsmanship, our doors are built to be beautiful and built to last. In this video, you will get a closer look how to buy a garage door, but here are the basics:

• Our vinyl-coated steel platform on the American Legends offers the Carriage Style design we love with a smooth, clean appearance of the surface and overlays. Our standard offerings come in four sections with a customizable top section to accommodate any height and design preference.
• The Estate Collection, built on a single sheet of smooth, white Versatex offers vast design capabilities. While nearly every aspect of these products can be customized from the height and width to the top section to the profiles on the face to whatever your heart desires, our standard offerings are three sections with big, beautiful windows.
• All Fimbel tops are engineered to keep your door free of defects when properly installed and maintained.

Either construction method will bring you a low-maintenance, long-lasting, gorgeous door that will serve your garage needs both inside and out.

To find out more about our products, please use our dealer locator to find a dealer near you! 

The word 'garage' was first introduced to the English language in 1902, and the first overhead operating door was brought to life in the 1920's. Prior to these evolutions of language and innovation, carriage houses were used to shelter transportation of the time. Welcoming them home were swing doors. The structure and the doors performed the function just fine, but the interaction wasn't easy especially in geographical locations with cold and inclement weather for much of the year. But even though the effort required was an obstacle, no one can deny the classic beauty of these swing doors.

The introduction of the Model-T Ford and it's manufacturing lines drove a demand to change the way we enter the carriage house - or the garage as it became known. People enjoyed the ease of transit while in these new cars, and CG Johnson (the innovator of the overhead door) answered the call in 1921. Shortly after in 1924, our Great-Grandfather, Edward Fimbel Sr. who was a Millworker and making swing doors already, became the first to franchise the newly formed Overhead Door. If you are a history buff and want to catch up on all things Fimbel, please enjoy this timeline of the Fimbel family and this article (page 49) on our history!

Though we have progressed over the last century in our construction and materials, we are always proud to hang on to our roots. Today we offer the highest quality, customizable, and sustainable doors in the industry which are typically overhead operating, but we also still make swing doors in any of our Estate Collection offerings!

Swing doors are two slabs that hang vertically in either side of the framed opening. Oftentimes, authentic swing carriage doors are shown with the traditional x-bucks (considered 'barn' doors by many). Today we add carved design features and overlays in many configurations to add to the design, but fact remains the A-bucks, V-bucks, and Crossbucks (as the diagonal overlay design is called) were originally a core piece of the integrity and durability of the door to keep them from sagging in the opening. This is where the function of yesterday becomes the fashion of today! Our doors are built strong for durability but allow you to design to your heart's delight. 

Originally, swing doors were operated manually, and they still can be today; however, current technology allows the push of a button to swing out (or in for those who choose) and welcome you to the shelter of the garage.

Whether it is an existing garage, barn, studio, or classic carriage house, or you are building a new one, you can bring the classic look and time tested quality of swing doors with the functions and innovative construction and materials of today. You can mix and match overhead and swing doors to allow the best of both worlds. As shown below and in the feature image, this family purchased a home with more garage bays than they had cars, so they converted the bay nearest the pool into their modified pool house. The sectional doors (there are two) on the left allow for cars, bikes, and life's needs while the swing door will welcome the playful children and sun-kissed adults with ease. You can watch the magic happen in the super quick video below! 

Construction:

The Estate Collection, truly welcomes the designer in all of us to emerge with the blend between tradition and innovation. Using a hand placed wood frame and nesting in our insulation, we laminate a vinyl back cover and a solid vinyl exterior that encases the face. This slab now becomes a blank slate to bring you more for your door.

Using both ⅜" and ¾" material, Versatex for unfinished doors and Tricoya for factory finished doors, we have options to add select profiles and nearly limitless designs to satisfy inspiration. These capabilities allow us to build the door in unique and custom sizes.

You will see these designs in our Euro-Dor and Presidential Series offering carriage, traditional, and modern styles. Offering profiles to meet your needs, these styles showcase deep raised panels and crafted designs to complement the architecture and aesthetics of your home.

To achieve a more classic carriage look, we offer the Roaring Twenties. This series starts with the same platform yet adds solid, study overlays pocketed (nested) into the face. The pronounced look of this classic style can be modified in myriad ways to satisfy decorative features and historical applications. Each of these series offers incredible longevity and beauty to satisfy.

Our door designs come to life in our sectional doors as well as our swing doors, so whichever functionality you prefer, we have the door for you! 

Options:

Make it your own by choosing specialty glass for your garage door. With these options and many more, you can add style and details to your project while managing your privacy and the natural light you let in!

For a true carriage look, we offer a variety of options for decorative hardware. From strap hinges and pull handles to latches and clavos, you can further customize your door! Many standard kits are available, but the options are limitless!

With additional options for the interior of the garage door, you can customize with an interior backer to add to the aesthetics. Our interior grille inserts provide the look of true divided lites and classes up the glass.

Bring the 19th and early 20th centuries back to life with a swing carriage house complimented by the modern operations and construction of today. To learn more about our products, head to our homepage to download our Product Guide that will walk you through the many options available in our Estate Collection Swing Doors! 

2020 has certainly taught us the value of our space - for better or for worse. As quarantine set in and the walls became a little closer and the delivery boxes piled higher, the valuable real estate in the garage became precious. For many the garage tends to act as a collection and storage unit which is great, but the garage is indeed intended for parking vehicles. Don't endure another winter parking the car outside the comfort of the garage.

Below are some simple tips to support your project of reclaiming the garage in a way that will last with limited maintenance year after year. Just like our doors, we want you to enjoy life in a low-maintenance, quality way.

Garage doors have come a long way. For decades they simply stood sentinel to welcome vehicles and hide our belongings. Today, 71% of families use the garage as the primary entrance to the home, and the role of the door has changed. Now we see design innovation and manufacturing excellence furnishing garages with absolute beauty and supreme function. At Fimbel ADS we are committed to carrying forth the quality and craftsmanship our great-grandfather built our family business upon while blending in the marvels of today's manufacturing capabilities. You will not find a more beautiful or durable door in the market, and we are sure it will only bring satisfaction to your life.

As summer becomes a thing of the past, and we embrace the chills of autumn, making sure the garage is efficient, secure, and safe should be on the honey-do list. For some garages it may be a simple repair or tweek, but rest assured when you replace your door with a quality, high end door, it will be worth it's weight in gold! "Compared with 22 other common home-improvement projects, an upscale garage door replacement offers one of the biggest bangs for your buck and costs much less than many other home improvement projects" according to the Remodeling Magazine's 2020 Cost vs. Value Report. Coming in at #2 with a 94.5% ROI at resale, the garage clearly deserves some attention!

Whether you are building (or rebuilding) your dream home, we want to help enhance your curb appeal, ensure sustainability and energy efficiency, and allow for a low-maintenance lifestyle. With a Fimbel door you can count on more!

The most obvious reason to replace your garage door is to improve the curb appeal of the home. The term applies to the aesthetic appeal of a residential or commercial building as perceived from the street, and it was made popular in the 90's with the release of HGTV's show "Curb Appeal". As you may know, the entry door of most homes only constitutes 8% of the home's frontage while the garage door often consumes 30%, we can see the potential for impact with a new door. With the impressive ROI, utilizing the capabilities we offer through our manufacturing as well as additional options such as finishing and hardware, updating the garage door is a slam dunk! To learn more about designing like an architect, please enjoy the attached blog post where we take you through the process!

With Fimbel ADS we can accommodate any of the design styles you desire. Our doors have the sought after look of painted wood without the maintenance. Our Euro, Presidential, and Roaring Twenties series give you the liberty to design to your heart's delight. Our American Legends series comes not only in the classic carriage style but also recessed panel and modern while offering customizations!

Our finishing options give way for your design to take flight with a standard color, custom color, or hand applied faux stain of your choice. Using sustainable paint products and proprietary application processes, our finish will last and bring peace of mind. To find out more about our finishing options, here's another blog post to help paint the full picture for you!

Color isn't the only way to make a Fimbel door your own. We offer you the opportunity to design your door down to the smallest detail. Whether you want to customize the top section to allow for more or less light, or you want to redesign the top section completely to incorporate scrollwork or a custom design, we have the options for you.

Another way to make it your own is to add decorative hardware to the face of the door. To simplify the installation and application of the add-on features, we can customize our rails and designs to accommodate their size and even pre drill the holes to guarantee a polished final look. To complete the package for the hardware, you have the option to powder coat the track system in virtually any color though we like clean white and solid black!

Make it Smarter:

Our organization hangs our hat on safety and quality not only in how we make our product, and we want you to feel the benefits of that. Fimbel doors are manufactured to be safety first. You, your family, your home, and your belongings will rest safely behind our door. Our doors are engineered for durability! We know that poorly fitted doors are not only unsightly but also allow unwanted openings. Since we can match nearly any opening, weather, burglars, and bugs will not have access to your home through the garage door!

Fimbel doors offer you a low-maintenance lifestyle. The clean appearance of the door should last for years to come with a gentle clean with mild soap and water. No harsh abrasives or undue elbow grease necessary. This aspect may be overlooked, but when we consider the supply chain for cleaning products, the effort to implement the cleaning, and the residual waste moving into the earth, we see our processes make way for sustainability.

Another way that we encourage sustainability is in the benefits you will feel toward energy efficiency! To get a basic idea, the older the door the more likely it is that money is seeping out through it. Our doors are made with insulation that is laminated and completely fill the cavity inside the door to keep air from moving around and through the door. A well-insulated door will reduce energy costs as well as maintain temperatures set in the garage. We want to help you keep cool air in during the summer and cold air out during the winter!

One of the longest lasting aspects of our doors is the contribution made upon purchase. For every door we sell, we work with our partners at One Tree Planted to plant a tree on your behalf. We know the resources generously given my Mother Nature need replenishing, and we want to pay it forward!

iTo back this beautiful, energy efficient, and low-maintenance lifestyle, we offer you a robust warranty that will satisfy! Regardless of your geographical location, we offer a warranty for our products coast to coast and proudly stand behind our warranty.

Make it a Fimbel:

Don't compromise aesthetic appeal for practical needs - you can have it all with a Fimbel door. With our designs, you can find the right door to offer you more. If energy efficiency is what you are after, we have you covered. If your geographic location is limiting your choices, we have you covered. If you are driven by value and longevity, we have you covered. Or if you simply want to make your neighbors jealous, we've got that, too! We are here to provide the door to support your lifestyle and desires – no matter your opening or aspiration, we have you covered!

Find a dealer near you by using our dealer locator!