Measuring for Side Hinged Doors
Side Hinged Steel Garage doors in 2025 and offered on GarageDoorsOnline are now manufactured as standard with a factory fitted steel or aluminium box section fixing sub frame, which makes ordering, handling and site installation super easy.
A big feature of a factory fitted fixing sub frame is perfect alignment and accurate tolerances with the door leaves, hinges and locking as well as far greater weathersealing ability from many higher specification models and insulated door models.
Measuring for Side Hinged Garage Door Ordering Sizes
Measure the Width of your clear garage structural opening from the top to the bottom across the width in several places. Measure the Height of your structural opening from the lintel to the floor in several places. The smallest measurements taken will provide the basis for the dimensions for ordering your door with the fixing sub frame included.
Tolerances for Fitting
It is essential to always allow for a small tolerance for the fitting - Take a minimum of 10mm - 20mm off for the width and 5-10mm for the height and then you have your ordering dimensions. The tolerance is up to you in reality and might well depend how square or smooth your garage structural opening is.
INFORMATION TABS
ALWAYS refer to the 'measuring tab' shown lower down in our online shop for any garage door before placing an order for a specific make or model of door. This tab will show you how the specific door is ordered and priced.
Please also refer to the 'measuring tab' shown in the online shop when placing an order for a specific make or model of door
Standard Side Hinged Garage Doors
These doors are generally always made to measure as standard and always have a factory fitted sub frame included. This is for the Carteck, Teckentrup,Hormann and Ryterna side hinged doors
The measuring guide image shown directly below is for standard sizes of our single skin steel, GRP and timber side hinged doors.
Reusing an existing timber sub frame:
Take the smallest measurements as the ones to use. If there is a large difference in various places then it may be better to remove the frame and replace everything
Back to the top Ordering your door
Ordering your Purpose Made Side Hinged Garage Door
In our online shop you will see the first question to answer is about the ordering sizes. You will see ‘up to’ sizes and you choose the next size up for the width and the height to the sizes you want to order. Most side hinged garage doors on our site are purpose made as standard.
Exact Order Sizes
When you have chosen these ‘up to’ sizes the screen will refresh and you have 2 boxes to fill in for your ‘exact’ ordering sizes. You only need to fill these in if you are proceeding to ordering, otherwise you can go to the options for the door and select options to get a final price.
Delivery
Delivery charges apply to most areas so this is shown at the end and based on your location by county. Some counties are a POA simply because we need more details on access and postcode to verify whether we can deliver and the exact price.
Floor Levels
The floor level is the biggest single issue for many garage doors. Ideally the floor is level and the various thresholds that come with many side hinged doors sit neatly onto the level floor and provide greater weathersealing performance. If your garage floor isn't level it might be worth the investment to get a builder to sort the floor level before installing any new doors as this will give far greater performance and security overall. You also need to be aware of the ground levels directly in front of your garage. Make sure the ground does not rise up in front of the garage preventing the side hinged doors from opening fully.
Notes on Side Hinged Doors Fixing Frames
As modern side hinged garage doors are now mostly pre-fitted with either a steel or aluminium outer fixing sub frame for the very easiest installation and best overall performance, fit and weathersealing, the dimensions are always referring to the door and the frame combined.
The ‘traditional’ timber side hinged garage doors are usually fitted with a separate timber sub frame, which can of course be any size required to accomodate unusual opening sizes or shapes. A timber sub frame provides increased flexibility during the installation process, and is able to be adjusted and cut down to fit any existing stonework where a steel frame would require infilling. Timber frames can be ordered in a wide variety of sizes, making them more flexible to order than steel and aluminium frames.
Standard Imperial Size Side Hinged Garage Doors
The measuring guide image shown below is for our standard sizes of our single skin steel, GRP and timber side hinged doors.
Important: If you have an opening size that does not seem to match any overall dimensions for a range of standard doors, then as long as you are happy with the smaller standard sizes you can pack out the opening to secure the sub frame. It is almost like adding a further sub frame on top of the existing frame, with some limits of course in terms of visual appearance.
General rule of thumb: The ordering sizes for ‘standard’ size doors are the fixing sub frame daylight opening sizes (allow for the sub frame in your calculations if ordering a new one!)
Measuring for Replacement Side Hinged Garage Doors
When measuring for a pair of replacement side hinged garage doors, ignore the existing sub frame for whatever door is already in place; we are only interested in the garage structural opening. However, this is not the case if you are re-using the timber sub frame, which normally only happens with existing timber side hinged doors and when the sub frame remains in very good condition to re use.
Reusing an existing timber sub frame:
Take the smallest measurements from multiple measurements as the ones to use. If there is a large difference in various places or the frame is out of square then it may be better to remove the frame and replace everything, starting from fresh.
Using Standard Size Doors
For example, you may measure a garage opening as 2290mm wide and 2250 high. Ordering a standard sized door (2134mm x 2134mm) with a 70mm sub frame will mean the overall dimensions will be 2274mm wide by 2204mm high. The resulting tolerance is 8mm on either side, and 46mm for the head. The width tolerance is OK, however the head tolerance will require an infill of some sort, although this is quite normal. New build properties may be different, and may be worth building to suit the dimensions of your desired garage when possible (based on overall dimensions plus 5-10mm all around).
ALWAYS refer to the 'measuring tab' shown in our online shop for each garage door model when placing an order for a specific make or model of door. This will show you how the specific door is ordered and priced.
Ordering your new Side Hinged Garage Door
In our online shop you will see the first question to answer is about the ordering sizes. You will see ‘up to’ sizes and you choose the next size up for the width and the height to the sizes you want to order. Most side hinged garage doors on our site are purpose made as standard.
Exact Order Sizes
When you have chosen these ‘up to’ sizes the screen will refresh and you have 2 boxes to fill in for your ‘exact’ ordering sizes. You only need to fill these in if you are proceeding to ordering, otherwise you can go to the options for the door and select options to get a final price.
Delivery
Delivery charges apply to most areas so this is shown at the end and based on your location by county. Some counties are a POA simply because we need more details on access and postcode to verify whether we can deliver and the exact price.
Floor Levels
The floor level is the biggest single issue for many garage doors. Ideally the floor is level and the various thresholds that come with many side hinged doors sit neatly onto the level floor and provide greater weathersealing performance. If your garage floor isn't level it might be worth the investment to get a builder to sort the floor level before installing any new doors as this will give far greater performance and security overall. You also need to be aware of the ground levels directly in front of your garage. Make sure the ground does not rise up in front of the garage preventing the side hinged doors from opening fully.
Notes on Side Hinged Doors Fixing Frames
As modern side hinged garage doors are now mostly pre-fitted with either a steel or aluminium outer fixing sub frame for the very easiest installation and best overall performance, fit and weathersealing, the dimensions are always referring to the door and the frame combined.
The ‘traditional’ timber side hinged garage doors are usually fitted with a separate timber sub frame, which can of course be any size required to accomodate unusual opening sizes or shapes. A timber sub frame provides increased flexibility during the installation process, and is able to be adjusted and cut down to fit any existing stonework where a steel frame would require infilling. Timber frames can be ordered in a wide variety of sizes, making them more flexible to order than steel and aluminium frames.
