Wadsworth is a Medina County city just west of Akron, with Norton and Barberton to the east and the city of Medina to the northwest. It combines an older town center with growing subdivisions on its edges, so garage doors here range from aging single-car doors to wide insulated doors on newer homes.
This page focuses on homes: choosing and measuring for a door that suits your house, what older garages in town need, and how to keep a door working through northeast Ohio winters.
Choosing a residential door that suits the house
Start with the style of the home. Traditional panel doors suit most houses. Carriage-house designs, with vertical boards and decorative handles, fit farmhouse and older homes. Flush or modern doors with narrow windows suit contemporary houses.
Windows and color change the look as much as panel style does. A row of insulated windows in the top section brings in daylight and breaks up a wide door. Painting the door to match the siding helps it blend in, while a contrasting trim color makes it a feature.
- Insulated doors make sense for attached garages and rooms above the garage.
- Steel suits most budgets and needs little care; real wood and wood-look finishes are mainly a style decision.
- Darker colors can fade faster in strong sun; ask about finish warranties.
Older garages near the center of town
Homes in the older parts of Wadsworth often have detached garages with narrow openings, low headroom and doors that may be decades old. Some two-car garages from that era have two single doors with a post between them rather than one wide door.
Keeping two singles has advantages: each door is lighter, stands up to wind better and can fail without trapping both cars. Converting to one double door means removing the center post and installing a longer header, which is structural work that usually needs a permit. If the existing opener has no photo-eye sensors, replace it whichever route you choose.
Measuring before you shop
A replacement door has to fit more than the opening. Before collecting quotes, note these measurements, or have a technician take them during a free estimate.
- Width and height of the finished opening, measured in a few places in case it is out of square.
- Headroom: the space between the top of the opening and the ceiling or lowest obstruction, which decides whether standard or low-headroom track is needed.
- Side room: clear wall space on each side of the opening for the vertical track.
- Backroom: the depth from the door to the back wall, which has to hold the horizontal track and an opener rail.
Medina County winters
Wadsworth sees regular snow, frequent freeze-thaw cycles and plenty of road salt. Besides the familiar frozen bottom seal, winter brings two less obvious problems: snow shoveled or plowed against the photo-eye sensors, which blocks the beam so the door refuses to close, and keypad or remote batteries that weaken in the cold.
Keep the area around both sensors clear, swap keypad batteries in the fall, and lubricate the hinges and roller bearings before the first hard freeze. When a thaw comes, rinse the salt film off the lowest panel and the base of each track.
Last updated by the American Garage Door Team.