Sectional vs Roller Shutter Garage Doors? Sectional Roller Door Comparison Guide

Sectional Doors Vs Roller Shutter Garage Doors

Jump to: Designs & Finishes Colours & Materials Sizes & Mechanisms Security Windows & Insulation Conclusion

Sectional garage door demonstration diagram

In the UK, the majority of customers looking for any new or replacement garage door can immediately understand the operation and movement of a roller garage door; it is definitely a very neat and compact door design, and fits most structural garage openings.

The sectional overhead garage door does need a bit more explaining and understanding, yet in both the USA and Europe it is the biggest selling garage door type, and has been for many years. Why is this?

So, why is the sectional garage door not considered as an option more often? Both doors can be fitted behind any shape of garage opening after all. The answer seems to be simply down to publicity, price and awareness. The roller garage door is easy for a salesman or company to price, sell and install, and for buyers to understand without prior knowledge. The sectional garage door should always be considered, however, and in many cases, you can get a lot more garage door for your money.

The Fundamental Difference

The Roller Shutter: Can be fitted to nearly every shape of garage opening (inside, between, or in front of the aperture) with no internal tracking, giving a neat, compact-style operation. It does, however, generally need more headroom to accommodate the curtain roll and provide you with a decent drivethrough height

The Sectional Door: Requires space inside the garage ceiling for the horizontal tracks to run, but operates with an incredibly smooth, strong mechanism. Both doors open and close vertically, allowing you to park right up to them. The sectional door panels are considerably stronger than any other garage door panel or a roller door slat. Some headroom requirments can be as low as 130mm and still provide you with full drive through height when opened.

Internal view of a roller shutter door

Internal view of insulated sectional garage door

Internal view of a sectional garage door

Door Designs and Finishes

The roller garage door has one visual design only: horizontal lines. The only variable options are in colour surface finishes and the subtle differences in the curtain slats used from different manufacturers. The surface finish is only ever a smooth paint finish or a subtle woodgrain laminate foil coating.

On the contrary, the sectional garage door has many designs, with a huge choice between almost any colour paint finish, as well as woodgrain and metallic laminate finishes. The metal front face surface is available in smooth, woodgrain textured, micrograin ribbed, stucco textured, and various unique styling effects.

The images below exemplify the variety available among sectional doors, whilst the second row shows the differences between aluminium and steel slatted roller doors.

Georgina panelled sectional garage door in white

Georgian Panelled Sectional

Ryterna retro style sectional garage door

Period Aesthetic Sectional

SWS Insulated Aluminium roller garage door

Twin Insulated Aluminium Roller Doors

Single Skin Manual Steel Roller Shutter

Colours

The majority of roller garage doors have a good, but limited amount of colour painted finishes, however there is a large choice of laminate finishes available such as golden oak, rosewood, mahogany and many others. Sectional garage doors are pretty much available in any RAL or BS paint finish colours with a wider range of metallic and designer paing finishes as well as laminate woodgrain options,

The laminate wood grain finishes for sectional doors are generally more limited than for roller door options, but sectional doors are also available in some very trendy, modern metallic surface finishes (Anthracite, for example).

Carteck solid ribbed sectional door in anthracite with small square windows

Black Sectional with Designer Windows

SeceuroGlide insulated electric roller garage doors in white

Twin Roller Shutter Garage Doors in White

Materials

Roller garage doors can be produced in two different materials: steel or aluminium. Aluminium slats are foam filled, double skinned slats that are joined together by a profile at the top of each slat. A steel roller door is a continuous, single skin curtain consisting of one large steel sheet with horizontal ribbed profiles.

A Quick Warning on Roller Materials: A cheap, inferior slat used in constructing a roller garage door will give a very short lifespan. Ensure the slats are produced in Northern Europe, and are not an adaptation of a thin window shutter. Many very cheap components are finding their way into the UK, including cheap electric motors with non replaceable parts.

Sectional garage doors are all available in double-skin galvanised steel panels of varying depths, timber panels, and aluminium panels. The economy of steel, the superb insulation of double-skinned insulated steel, the beauty of timber, and the modern feel of aluminium are all brilliant options. Generally, the best sectional doors are produced in Germany, and timber sectional doors are manufactured right here in the UK.

Sizes and Mechanisms

A roller garage door from any major UK manufacturer normally has a maximum width of about 5.5 metres wide and a height of 3 metres. In contrast, sectional doors manufactured in double-skinned steel panels can be built up to a massive 8 metres wide and 3 metres high. Both door types can be fully made-to-measure for a perfect fit.

Mechanisms: The roller garage door is electric-operated with either a tube motor set inside the barrel or an external motor, or spring-assisted for manual operation. The sectional garage door uses a robust torsion or tension spring mechanism, lifting the door panels incredibly smoothly. Most roller garage doors require between 205mm and 450mm of headroom above the lintel, while sectional gear only requires between 100mm to 230mm of headroom.

Security Advantages

Roller garage doors are generally fairly secure (excluding the very basic single skin steel door). Double-skinned aluminium roller doors are far more secure, and the SWS SeceuroGlide Excel aluminium roller door even has a Level 1 Secured by Design insurance rating (LPS1175 SR1), providing high resistance to forced entry. However, security can be a big issue with cheap roller doors that lack proper mechanisms at the top of the curtain to prevent forced lifting.

Carteck sectional garage door with square windows

Sectional doors are incredibly secure by the very nature of their design. With door panels set behind a sturdy steel framework and multiple rollers secured inside the side tracks, they provide immense lateral resistance. Most leading manufacturers use high-security europrofile cylinder locking systems. When a good quality electric operator is installed with a double skinned steel sectional door, it poses a massive challenge to any would be intruder!

Windows and Glazing

Roller garage doors can only have a limited amount of small glazing cut out sections in the individual curtain slats, which gives minimal light. Glazing is not possible at all in continuous steel roller doors.

Sectional garage doors can have stunning window sections fitted in single or double glazed specifications. Arched designs and modern stainless steel designer windows are readily available to create a true architectural statement for your home.

Insulation, Sealing, and Emergency Opening

A roller door produced using foam-filled aluminium slats (approx 19mm thick) offers reasonable insulation, but there are many tiny gaps between the interlocking slats that prevent it from achieving highly accurate U values.

Sectional panels, constructed in 42mm, 45mm, or even 67mm thick foam filled sections, feature heavy duty rubber seals between the panels and around the entire perimeter frame. This achieves incredibly high levels of thermal insulation.

Emergency Opening: For an electric roller door, the basic override during a power cut is an internal winding manual mechanism. A sectional garage door is always primarily a manually operated door first, meaning in a power cut, you simply release the motor towing arm and easily lift the door manually using its spring balance.

Conclusion

The real trick is to always consider the sectional garage door as a very real, competitive option to the roller garage door before making a decision based simply on familiarity. The sectional garage door wins on most technical, insulation, and design options, its only negative point is for those who strictly prefer no internal ceiling tracking in their garage.

If your door is to be over 5 metres wide, we highly recommend the sectional garage door due to its immense panel strength and lack of deflection, primarily supplied by Carteck for a fantastic range of on trend, relevant high quality colours and faster delivery times as they are built in the UK

Crucial Industry Recommendations

DO NOT buy a cheap, electric aluminium roller garage door!

There are many so called 'roller garage door experts' selling incredibly low priced, double skinned aluminium roller doors. This is very risky.

Inferior internal parts, low quality curtain slats and insufficient safety mechanisms make these cheap roller doors a nightmare for the user, and highly prone to breaking down and degrading to be scratched and looking second hand veryy quickly. Look to pay at least £750 upwards for a decent quality, single sized insulated roller garage door form a known brand. If your budget is less than this you are far better off buying a single skin steel roller door like Gliderol, or looking at a Manual Up & Over door.

In contrast, there really isn't a "bad" sectional garage door on the UK market. Manufacturers like , Carteck, Hormann, Garador, Seceuroglide and Novoferm provide incredibly high quality, reliable, doors that will last for decades.

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