Garage doors are a huge part of the exterior style of your home. Just like other design elements around your house, they can fade and become outdated. New garage panels also offer you a great chance to add insulation to your garage, making it a more usable and comfortable room. If you spend a lot of time doing crafts and hobbies in your garage, you will appreciate having a room where it is easier to control the temperature.

Many people think they need to change their entire garage door if they want to change the style. But, you can actually just change the panels and keep the same frame and motor. Best of all, you can do the work yourself to save money on the project if you have a few basic tools. This article explains how to order and replace traditional residential garage doors:

Ordering Your New Doors

The first thing you need to do is find your replacement panels. You will definitely have the best luck if you buy panels directly from the original manufacture. There are third-party manufacturers, but they often need to be custom installed and retrofitted to work with your garage frame and motor. If you buy your panels directly from the manufacturer, the process of replacing them is much easier.

Removing Your Panels

You can have your panels shipped directly to your property and then you can take over from there and start on the installation. Before you remove your panels, you want to make sure that your frames are in good shape. If the frames are bent or kinked, they could collapse once you pull the panels out. Just visually inspect your frames before you start to remove the panels, but also keep an eye on them as you pull the panels out. Most panels can be removed from the frame by just removing a few screws. You might need to apply some pressure to pop the panel out. 

It is important that you do the work panel by panel. That is, remove one or panel and then immediately put the new panel in place and then move onto the next one. Don't remove all the panels at once.

When it comes to attaching the new panels, you will need two people on the job. One person can secure the screws from the inside of the garage while the other holds the panel in place.