strengthen / stiffen garage door?

[iahawk]

I did a search and didn't see anything....we had a big storm blow through here last night (60-70mph winds) and a few garage doors in the neighborhood were buckled inward.

The neighborhood is about 7-10 years old...all doors seem to be raised panel, insulated doors. Most are 3 stall garages with a double door and single door.

It looks like none of the tracks pulled away from the framing, the doors seemed to buckle inward a foot or two, the worst buckling seemed to be dead center in the door about 2 ft above floor level.

I was wondering what stops this. Is it the full width metal stiffening piece? I noticed my double door has 2 of these pieces, one on the top panel and 1 on the bottom. Would adding this stiffening piece to the other 2 panels aid much in preventing this type of blow in? Seems like it's a pretty inexpensive piece and could be easily added.

It's funny, as the storm was blowing last night I said to my wife that the garage doors must be pretty strong to not just blow in on themselves!

 

[upndown]

With the lighter weight Garage Doors, unfortunately the reinforcement struts have become lighter as well. It can't hurt, but unfortunately you wont know until it happens again. If they're 10 years old it sounds like it might be an isolated incident.

Mother nature is strange that way, look at Tornadoes, 1 house is fine..house on either side gone

 

[kbs2244]

You have identified the right piece.
And as upndown says,
"It can't hurt."

 

[pattenp]

Just be aware, adding additional stiffing braces may throw off the balanced weight of your door.

 

[48windsor]

I reinforced my garage door withsome U shaped thin sheetmetal it fit right in the track , than I pop riveted it Works great . The door was sagging . Previous owner had ran into it .

 

[where2]

In South Florida, where doors have to be rated to survive impact from a 2x4 traveling 34mph, every panel of the garage door typically has a brace across it, and every track mounting flange to the wall has two 3" lags going into the framing around the door opening.

My hurricane windstorm deductible is probably on the order of $10k. The $800 I paid for a single wide hurricane rated door was simply a preventative payment. The door it replaced was basically Masonite from 1962. Studies show keeping the wind outside the structure help keep the structure together in a storm. You should see the accordion setup that covers my sliding glass door... The slider is next on my replacement list...