Garage door types
Six garage door types cover almost every UK residential garage. Each guide below sets out how the door works, honest pros and cons, typical UK installed prices inc. VAT, and where it makes sense against the alternatives.
Roller garage door
A curtain of interlocking aluminium slats that rolls up into a barrel above the opening — the most space-efficient common UK garage door, well suited to low-headroom garages and short driveways.
£1,700–£2,800 inc. VAT and fitting
Sectional garage door
Horizontal insulated panels linked by hinges that travel vertically then horizontally along ceiling-mounted tracks — the best-sealing and typically best-insulated common UK garage door.
£1,650–£3,500 inc. VAT and fitting
Up-and-over garage door
A single steel panel that pivots up and back into the garage on a counterbalanced track, identified first by whether the gear is canopy or retractable — the cheapest and most common UK garage door type.
£850–£2,500 inc. VAT and fitting
Side-hinged garage door
Two hinged leaves that swing outward from either side of the frame like a pair of gates — the door type that gives easiest walk-in access and the widest material choice, from steel to bespoke hardwood.
£1,350–£10,000 inc. VAT and fitting
Insulated garage door
Not a separate mechanism but a construction choice — a foam-filled, double-skin panel available across sectional, roller and side-hinged doors, worth paying for wherever the garage is heated, attached, or used as a living or utility space.
£1,895–£3,500 inc. VAT and fitting
Electric garage door
Not a door type itself but an operator added to roller, sectional or retractable-gear up-and-over doors — the automation layer that turns manual daily lifting into a remote-controlled press of a button, governed in the UK by a specific safety-in-use standard.
£1,500–£3,500 inc. VAT and fitting