Selecting doors for a large commercial garage or a hangar that is used to store light aircraft or other larger things is important. Depending on the size of the building, the door selection can make the difference between opening the doors easily on your own or having to have someone assist you. 

Large Buildings Mean Large Doors

When you are looking at door options for your hanger or garage, installing small doors in the building will make the structure harder to use. If you need enough space inside to warrant building a structure as large as an aircraft hanger, restricting the access to it with a small door does not make sense. 

The doors for your hanger need to be large enough to easily fit large items through, but with large doors come concerns about the function of the doors. If the doors are extremely large, making sure you can open them easily is high on the list of priorities for many people. 

Bifold Hangar Doors

One option you may want to consider is installing bifold doors in your hanger. These doors open by folding one door back against the other and then sliding the two doors out of the way. The process is repeated on the opposite side of the hanger, leaving a very large opening in the building to move things in and out of. 

Bifolding aircraft doors slide on a track that makes it easy to open the doors by yourself in most cases. For extremely large doors, a system to open the doors electrically is often installed with the doors. These door opening systems make opening the door easier, but if there is a power failure, they will not function and you may still need to open the doors manually. 

Sliding Doors

Similar to the bifold doors, sliding doors are another popular option on large garages and hangars. The sliding doors work by sliding the sections to one side or the other of the building and also result in a large opening in the building that allows easy access to the hangar.

The sliding doors are easy to open and close, but again, if they are extremely large, you will more than likely want to have an opener system on the doors to assist you.

Roll-Up Doors

While roll-up doors are fine in smaller buildings, the weight of the door makes then a poor choice in a hangar situation. The larger the door, the heavier it is going to be, so opening it requires a lot of power and strength, since the weight of the door when open is hanging on the structure. There are some hangers that use doors that open vertically, but they are typically hydraulicly operated and found only on small hangars for small aircraft.