Replacing a garage door is a job most people only do once, and the transport is the part nobody costs in. A door arrives as a set of rigid panels, a frame, a torsion tube and a spring assembly, and none of it folds. Garage door van hire is therefore a booking made out of necessity rather than choice, usually after the supplier has quoted for delivery. If you are looking at van hire in Warrington for a door, the panel length is the number that decides everything.
What Actually Comes With a Garage Door
A sectional or up and over door is delivered as several separate components and it is easy to underestimate the collection because the door itself sounds like one item. There are the panels or the single leaf, the frame sections, the track, the torsion tube, the springs and a box of fixings and brackets. The panels and the tracks are long and rigid. The spring assembly is short but surprisingly heavy for its size. Ask the supplier for a component list with the longest dimension on it rather than the door’s opening size, because the opening size is what you measured on your garage and tells you nothing about what fits in a vehicle.
Panel Width Is Wider Than the Opening
This is the detail that catches almost everyone. A door made for a standard single garage opening is manufactured wider than the opening itself, because it has to overlap and sit in a frame. That means the panels are longer than the measurement you took with a tape across the brickwork, often by a noticeable margin. Double doors are wider again and go beyond what most vans will take across their width, so they travel along the load space rather than across it. Get the actual panel dimension from the supplier in writing before you book a vehicle, and treat any figure quoted as the opening size with suspicion.
Choosing a Body With the Internal Run
Because the panels and the tracks will not bend, internal load length is the only measurement that matters. Our extra long wheelbase body offers a four point three metre internal load length, which is the longest we run and covers the large majority of domestic door components in one piece. The extra long wheelbase van is worth asking for by name rather than leaving the vehicle open, since there is no way to angle a rigid steel panel into a shorter body without putting a bend in it. Everything we run sits within three and a half tonnes gross vehicle weight and is driveable on a standard category B car licence.
Protecting Painted and Insulated Panels
Garage door panels arrive with a factory finish that is the whole point of buying a new door, and it marks easily. Insulated sectional panels have a foam core with a thin steel skin, which dents under a point load rather than flexing. Keep the protective film on until the door is hung, lay panels flat and fully supported on the van floor rather than across wheel arches, and put something soft between each one. Never stand a panel on its long edge unsupported, and never let the track sections rest directly on a painted face. A dented panel cannot be repaired invisibly and a replacement single panel is rarely available quickly.
Springs Deserve Genuine Respect
Torsion and extension springs store a great deal of energy and they are the one component on a garage door that seriously injures people. A new spring arrives unwound and is safe to carry, but it should still travel secured rather than rolling about, and it must never be tensioned outside the fitted assembly. If you are removing an old door, the springs on it are under tension and releasing them is a job for someone who knows the procedure and has the correct winding bars. This is the point in the job where calling a fitter for an hour is money well spent, and it is worth deciding that before you have the old door half off.
Measuring the Route and the Working Space
Think about where the van will stand relative to the garage. Panels have to come off the vehicle and go straight into the opening, and if the van is parked on the road while the garage is at the end of a shared drive, you are carrying two metre panels a considerable distance with a hand at each end. Look at the approach before collection day. Customers working on properties around Birchwood van hire bookings and the newer estates usually have a driveway to work from, whereas older terraced garages in blocks behind the houses can mean a long carry down an unmade lane.
Booking Around the Supplier and the Fitter
Door suppliers frequently work to a made to order lead time and will give you a collection week rather than a day, so confirm the door is finished and ready before you set out. Our depot on Tilley Street at the main entrance to Cockhedge Shopping Centre beside Asda is open Monday to Saturday from 8am until 4pm and closed on Sunday. Bring your photocard licence and a DVLA check code generated on the DVLA website beforehand, there is no deposit required on most of our vehicles, and free secure parking on site means your own car stays here while you are out. Anything else you want to confirm before booking is likely covered on our van hire FAQs.
Give us the panel length and whether it is a single or double door and we will confirm which body takes it flat. Call the depot on 01925 396 222 once the supplier has given you a collection date.
