Allow Iconic Garage Door Services to Make History
In the greater Phoenix area, our family-owned and operated company has been hard at work for all residential and commercial properties cementing the iconic name. We strive to make history with our iconic customer service, pricing, and workmanship. On the topic of history, we wanted to share 8 garage door fun facts which help us reflect how long we’ve depended on garage doors. Which of the following 8 garage door facts did you already know about?
1. The first garage doors were made of wood and were manually operated.
We can take the history of garage doors back to the Roman Empire where they had to park their chariots, horses, and battling equipment in a designated space. We could even go back a couple more millennia when the first wheel was invented. Early civilization had to park their form of transportation somewhere! It just probably wasn’t parked indoors and attached to their homes.
The first garage doors were doors attached by hinges and opened outward. Barn doors and carriage doors were the most popular style back then, which still make their appearances to this day!
2. The first overhead door was invented in 1921 by an inventor named C.G. Johnson.
Fast forward to the early twentieth century, and no one wanted their open horse carriages or early automobiles ruined by rainwater or snow. Once Henry Ford invented the automobile and roads proliferated the country, a salesman from Detroit in the automobile industry, Clarence Gilbert Johnson, invented the first overhead door.
Not everyone had the real estate to build a barn to house their vehicles, but there was a need for garages, so they started to be built as part of their home. Up until the invention of Johnson’s overhead door, people were still wrestling with overworked hinges, built-up snow, or uneven construction.
3. Many believe Johnson also invented the first electric garage door opener just five years after the first overhead door in 1926.
The first overhead door was essentially a single panel operated by two hinges on either side of the garage. It is argued that Herbert Cady Blodgett, a mechanical engineer who worked closely with Johnson, is the rightful inventor of the first garage door opener. He thankfully filed his patent application, however, Johnson’s enterprise, selling tactics, and additional skills trumped Blodgett’s name from the garage door industry entirely.
An additional garage door fun fact: Although the first opener was invented in the late 1920s, automatic garage door openers did not become popular until the 1950s.
4. Garage doors used to receive signals via radio waves.
Before motherboards, Wi-Fi, and smartphones, the radio was everybody’s form of technology. The remote control for your garage door would send signals in the form of radio frequencies to open or close.
When you pressed a button on the remote control, it would emit a specific radio frequency signal that corresponded to a unique code. This code is programmed to match the receiver unit in the garage door opener.
5. Many modern inventions were born out of the garage.
Not necessarily anything to do with our garage door services, but without the benefit of owning a garage door, it wouldn’t have granted additional work space and opportunity for inventions like the personal computer, the telephone, Mattel toys, the quadricycle (the earliest version of the Ford automobile), the Dyson vacuum, and so much more. If you have a carport or a detached garage that you would like converted into a traditional covered garage, request our carport conversion service today to get started on the world’s next greatest invention!
6. The average garage door weighs about 200 pounds.
Depending on the material, your garage door could weigh much more than a couple hundred pounds. The garage door weight is supported by wound-up tension thanks to garage door springs, making your door virtually weightless. Aluminum and steel materials make for a lighter garage door, while wood, glass, or added insulation greatly tip the scale.
7. The tallest garage door in the world is NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) located at the Kennedy Space Center in Merritt Island, FL.
Now this garage door fact is strictly just for fun! Garage doors are mainly for storing vehicles, but it is a space that can be converted to store virtually anything you want. (Peek one of our RV garage door installations to the right.) NASA took the cake by having their four VABs where they assemble rockets! The tallest part of the VAB is referred to as the high bay, where rockets can be fully assembled and stacked vertically before being rolled out to the launchpad. The VAB doors are 456 feet high, and take 45 minutes to fully open or close.
8. The most popular garage door color is white.
Since the first overhead door, stark white was the dominant color of people’s homes, or it at least complemented the exterior. The general rule is to paint your garage door a color that will go with any style or color home, and white is still the most popular garage door color to this day. Learn more about complementary colors and recommended garage door styles from our Before & After Garage Door Projects and gallery.
Talk to us about your garage door!
Today, garage doors can be made to look like wood, customized with any kind of accessory, and even designed to look and open like barn-style and carriage house doors from over a century ago. With over 45 years of combined experience, Iconic Garage Door Services knows everything there is to know about garage doors!
When you call us for broken garage door spring repair, faulty garage door opener repair, or emergency garage door service we make a point to explain the process to our residential and commercial customers in the greater Phoenix area. Please see our full list of service areas so you can book a thorough service appointment near you. In the meantime, let us know which of the 8 garage door fun facts surprised you the most!
