Get the Best Price on Buying a Garage Door

If you replacing existing door your options might be limited. The reason for this is because you usually have to match dimensions on your existing door, and if your house is several years old are you may be limited even more. The reason for this was because houses that were built ten years or more ago, did not have the options that we do today.

Manufacturing processes have improved to the point where a consumer can basically have any size door that the garage might require. If you're on the market for a garage door for brand new construction then you should have many opportunities to cut costs.

If you start early enough into the design period of your garage you can typically plan your garage door opening around the selected garage door. This is the point where you really want to aggressively target the door of your choice.

I find that it matters if you're going to do the install, if a contractor will be doing it, a hired hand, or your local building supply store will be doing the install. It usually goes in this order, yourself, of course, a hired hand, a contractor, your local building supply. Contractors and your local building supply will generally put on an additional 10% to 15% on top of the charges that the hired hand will give you. If you do not feel comfortable doing the install yourself then it is recommended that you hire the process done. If you're contractor or your building supply price the install feel free to haggle over price with them as you can generally trim off a couple percentage points on their pricing.

Check out your local building supply for the best prices, then make sure you not only check out their display models and compare prices and specs, but also check models that are located inside their catalogs. Usually, local building supplies will only have the best selling models on their floor or promotional models that their parent company is trying to push, this does not always equal the best quality or the best price, and if there is more than one building supply in your area, you will be surprised at how each company usually supplies the same type door at a given time. There might be a slight difference in materials, and the manufacturer name might not be the same, but the garage door itself is very similar.

Beware of Contractors who tell you that because of quantity that they buy, they get a special discount at the building supply, because the truth of it all is, that the building supply is usually in competition with the contractors these days. The Contractor will say that there is no need for the homeowner to purchase the door on his own because the price is going to be about 10% to 15% higher if the homeowner does just because of the Contractor discount he receives. The truth is that the building supplies do not really care anymore if you get the discount or if the contractor does and if you talk to the manager he will typically sell you the door at the Contractors rate and you just eliminated the Contractor's markup on the material and probably just got it delivered for free. If you allow your Contractor to price the material (door itself) then you are probably paying 10% to 15% more than you should just on the door, and if you let your building supply sell it to you without haggling on price then you are in the neighborhood of the same 10% to 15%.

Now, if you are buying a package from the building supply, such as all the building material needed for the garage itself then you have all kinds of leverage. Not only will you get a Contractors discount, usually, but you will also be able to trim percentage points from the overall project dollars. So it is advisable if you have the patience and the ability to keep things organized that you, the homeowner, purchase the materials for your garage in order to get components like the garage door at basement dollar prices.

Purchasing a garage door on the internet is typically not advisable because you usually don't get a chance to see it in person prior to purchasing it. And, selecting and buying a garage door off Ebay could lead to a disaster, so there is risk involved, there could also be great rewards like overstocked item pricing or slightly scratch and dent but usually these doors come with no warranty and sometimes are missing the hardware components (especially the scratch and dent) because the doors were actually assembled on the job sites before they were taken down and returned. Building supplies also carry scratch and dent but because they usually ship these back to the manufacturer soon after they are returned it is hard to find them in stock at the time, unless, it was the building supplies fault that the door was taken back then the building supply will be trying to get rid of it because the manufacturer will not take it back, ask, it doesn't hurt.

If you follow some of these steps you will be able to locate your garage door at basement pricing, and the best advice is to shop and shop some more, because there are great deals out there and the internet allows you to surf through them relatively easy.