For nearly 10 years, VF&I Garage Door Services has been servicing residential homeowners throughout the Las Vegas Valley with a multitude of garage door services. VF&I Garage Door Services and our experienced technicians are all fully licensed, certified and insured to give professional quality services to our valued customers. We proudly conduct our premium services with a high moral standard, friendly customer service while delivering our premium services. In conjunction with our expertise and experience, VF&I Garage Door Services takes advantage of professional graded equipment, tools, and products that our customers gets a maximum experience when employing our services.

Garage Door Glossary and Terminology

To help our valued residential customers in Las Vegas and surrounding areas, understand many of the terms and words commonly used in the industry, VF&I Garage Door Services has provided a glossary below.
– Astragal: Astragal is the name of the weather-stripping that is equipped along the bottom of the garage door to prevent any drafts, rain, or pests from entering the garage.
– Back hangs: Back hangs are the vertical supports that hold the horizontal track in place, and to keep the door in proper alignment in the track.
– Backroom: In relation to garages, backroom refers to the amount of space required to install a garage door measuring from the door to the back of the horizontal track.
– Bottom bracket: There are two bottom brackets, or also known as corner brackets, on a garage door – they are located on both the right and left side. On most sectional doors the bottom brackets are attached to the lifting cables.
– Bracket-mounted track: Bracket-mounted track is a vertical track that is attached to a doorjamb with angle brackets.
– Cable drums: Cable drums are essential to a tension spring system. When the garage door opens, the lifting cable winds around the grooves in the cable drum, keeping the lifting cable in line to prevent tangling.
– Cable safety device: A cable safety device stops the garage door from falling if the event the cable breaks.
– Cable stop: An additional safety device that attaches to the end of the cable to stop it from slipping through the drum.
– Cable: The cable, or lifting cable, connects the bottom bracket to the counterbalance mechanism.
– Center hinge: The center hinge is designed to be a flat hinge mounted on the door section that allows it to navigate the curve between the vertical and horizontal tracks.
– Center support bearing: The center support bearing is mounted above and to the middle of the door, to support the spring shaft.
– Clearances: Clearances refer to how much backroom, headroom and sideroom (the distance around the walls of the garage) is needed to efficiently install your door, which needs to be known for garage door installation.
– Curtain: The curtain is the face of the door that goes up and down, or side-to-side.
– Cycle: One cycle of a garage door starts when it’s fully closed, than is fully opened, and then back to being fully closed. Torsion spring doors are rated by how many cycles they’re supposed to safely complete in their lifetime, for example 25,000, 50,000 or 100,000 cycles.
– Dead load: A dead load refers to a load that doesn’t move, like a garage door as it rests in the closed position.
– Door frame: The door frame holds the garage door with two vertical pieces and a horizontal header (top piece).
– Door movement: Door movement refers to how much room a door has to lift in relation to the inside measurements of the garage. Door movement classifications are; standard lift, full vertical lift, high lift, or low headroom.
– Door size: To specifying a garage door size, measurements are give width first, followed by the height.
– Double-thick glass: Double-thick glass is approximately 1/8” thick.
– Extension springs: Extension springs are one of the two types of spring systems designed to carry the weight of a garage door when it lifts. Extension springs stretch on either side of the door, running from a pulley attached to the door, to the rear track hanger.
– Flag bracket: A flag bracket connects the vertical and horizontal tracks.
– Flush design: A garage door with a flush design is flat, with no indentations or grooves.
– Galvanizing: Galvanizing is the process of coating steel to prevent rusting, a mandatory step in manufacturing steel doors.
– Garage door opener: Garage door openers includes all of the hardware that works together to open and close a garage door. A garage door opener is usually operated automatically by remote control.
– Garage building plans: Garage building plans involve all of the garage blueprints and designs will produce the garage of your design.
– Garage door screens: Garage door screens are engineered like any regular screen door, but custom fitted to the opening of a garage door, keeping out bugs and dust.
– Gauge: Gauge is the thickness of steel. (The higher the number, the thinner the steel.)
– Hinges: Hinges are used to connect the sections of a garage door, allowing the door to conform as it runs up the vertical track and onto the horizontal track.
– Horizontal track: The horizontal track runs parallel to the garage ceiling, as it supports and guides the door to reach its completely opened position.
– Insulation: The insulation in a garage door is either made of polystyrene foam or polyurethane filler. Polyurethane insulates better than polystyrene, however the polystyrene lasts longer.
– Jamb seal: The jamb seal is the weather-stripping that runs around the door jamb, stopping drafts, rain, and pests from entering the garage.
– Jambs: The jambs are the vertical pieces on both sides of a door frame.
– Lift-handle: A life handle is periodically installed on a garage door in conjunction with a manually operated door.
– Lites: Lites is the industry word for glass or clear plastic windows in a frame.
– Low headroom: If your garage ceiling is lower than the standard, special low-headroom track hardware accessories are fusually needed.
– Muntin: A muntin is a piece of material that separates glass panes in a door.
– Opening size: The opening size refers to the distance between the walls and the doorjambs in a garage door opening.
– Overhead garage door: An overhead garage door is built in hinged sections, allowing it to travel up and down tracks as it opens and closes.
– Pane: A pane refers to a single section of a door.
– Perimeter seal: A perimeter seal kit includes enough weather-stripping to completely surround a garage door.
– Photo-electric sensor: Photo-electric sensors are a safety requirement enforced by law. They’re mounted 6” above the ground in the doorway, and will reverse the direction of the door if it hits an obstruction. If the sensor isn’t functioning, the door will not be operational.
– Pneumatic sensing edge kit: A pneumatic sensing edge kit is one of the same as a photo-electric sensor. It consists of an air hose that runs along the bottom of the garage door that’ll reverse the direction of the door if it comes into contact with an obstruction.
– Portable garage: Portable garages are made of UV-resistant and fire-retardant tarps or plastic sheets supported by metal tubing, that’ll house oversize items, like boats or RVs.
– Radius: The radius is the curved part of a track between the vertical and horizontal pieces.
– Rain stop: A rain stop, or sometimes referred to as the water stop, is a piece that runs across the garage floor, and holds the door flush against the outside finish when it’s closed.
– Rear track hangers: Rear track hangers attach the horizontal track to the ceiling for to stabilize it.
– Roller assembly: The roller assembly consists of an axle with a wheel attached, designed to run up and down the track.
– Rollers: The rollers are the wheel part of the roller assembly that rolls freely using ball-bearings.
– Safety spring containment: Safety spring containment is a system of cables that run through the inside of the coil holding it in place in case it breaks to avoid injury. These systems are found in the extension springs.
– Sectional doors: Sectional doors are just as the name suggests, made up of sections hinged together, to allow it to bend around the track as it opens and closes.
– Shaft bearings: Shaft bearings support the weight of the counterbalance system against the weight of the door.
– Sideroom: Sideroom is a measurement you need when you’re figuring out what size door system you need. It is the measurement of the distance from the door, back to the closest obstruction.
– Spring assembly: The spring assembly is the hardware that transfers the weight of the door to the counterbalance system.
– Stop molding: The stop molding is the wooden or plastic component that’s attached to the outside of the door jamb, used to seal out weather and light.
– Top header seal: The top header seal is the weather-stripping that runs along the top of the garage door.
– Torsion spring counterbalance assembly: The torsion spring counterbalance assembly is all the hardware hat collectively distributes the weight of the garage door as it opens and closes.
– Torsion springs: Torsion springs are the other type of spring system (as opposed to extension springs) that contributes in raising and lowering a garage door. They’re mounted above the door, and are loosened and tightened by the cables as they wind around the drum when the door is opened and closed.
– Track: The track is the part that holds and guides the roller assembly. It runs vertically to the top of the garage door, then horizontally parallel to the ceiling.
– Winding sleeves: The winding sleeves are the hardware that converts the tension as it enters the tension springs to distribute it into a manageable weight for the spring system.
– Windload: Windload a term used to describe the force of the wind as it hits a garage door in the closed position.

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