You’ve probably seen pictures of pedestrian doors on garages in the past. They look really great and seem very convenient, so people have become fond of posting galleries of them all over the Internet.

The rationalization behind pedestrian doors seems to be, "Instead of opening that big door to get in the garage, I could just walk through a much smaller one."

Garage doors can also come with pedestrian doors. Obviously, going through a small access door is going to be a lot easier than lifting an entire industrial garage door with dimensions of 16′ x 16′.

The size of pedestrian doors can vary greatly from one brand to another. However, the vast majority of them are going to be 32 inches wide by 78 inches high.

Our recommendation would be that you opt for a polyurethane‑insulated garage door to ensure your overall door system has a sufficiently solid structure. The garage door’s thickness should be somewhere between 1 3⁄8″ and 2″ to reach that goal.

Now that you have a better idea of what a pedestrian door entails for a residential setting, let’s move on to talking about the pros and cons of having one.

Not Enough Pros

If you have a garage connected to your house’s basement, installing a conventional access door might be a bit of a challenge. That’s why you were thinking of adding a pedestrian door.
People mistakenly think that an alternative entrance to your garage door would be necessary in case of a prolonged power outage. But that’s not the case at all. Even though you have a garage door opener, you can easily unplug it and open your garage door manually with one hand.

But Too Many CONS

1) The cost of one of these doors and the safety system required is probably the main drawback of choosing a pedestrian door. Without that safety system, your garage door could suffer major damage, so you definitely can’t skip it in an attempt to save money.

Installing a pedestrian door to a single garage door costs as much as the full-garage door system (meaning the garage door itself + the hardware).

2) If the garage door has an electric garage door opener, you must ensure the pedestrian door is always properly closed. Otherwise, the device could operate the opener when the door is open and cause severe damage.

3) Pedestrian doors cannot be installed on garage doors of any real width. The bare minimum width required is 8 feet. Furthermore, if your garage door is a rectangular model with an embossed design, the placement of the rectangles will be restricted.

4) The look of your garage door emboss will be really less pleasing to the eye and won’t add as much curb appeal to your house.

5) Finally, the more openings you put into a garage door – for any reason – the more energy efficiency will decrease. If insulation and weatherproofing are priorities for you, then you’ll have to choose that or the pedestrian door.

Paying Twice to Cost to Get a Pedestrian Door Is NOT What You Had in Mind?

You didn’t know pedestrian doors were having so many cons and were soooo expensive?

We feel you.

Now you prefer a regular garage door? Perfect! That’s what we do.

In fact, we feel so strongly about pedestrian doors NOT being a good investment; we don’t do them anymore.

Our company knows garage doors better than anyone does. We'll work directly with you to ensure this type of door makes sense for your home. If you want, we’d be happy to send you a detailed online quotation, too. You can also come to visit us in our showroom.

8 foot garage door with person door.

We are interested in an 8 foot garage door with a person door.

Submitted by Dany Smith (not verified) on Fri, 11/13/2020 - 18:35

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The Pros and Cons of a Garage Door with a Pedestrian Door

Not Enough Pros

But Too Many CONS

Paying Twice to Cost to Get a Pedestrian Door Is NOT What You Had in Mind?

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