Research
Garage door research from HyreGarage
45 studies built from federal data, building codes and public registers. We show the math and name every source.
Written by HyreGarage Research Desk Primary-source research and data analysis
What you will find here
HyreGarage publishes 45 original studies on garage doors and garages. Each one names the dataset it uses and the date we retrieved it.
Sources are federal agency files (CPSC, Census, NOAA, FEMA, BLS, DOE), building codes and standards, and public registers.
We show how we computed each figure, and we publish the gaps we could not fill.
Garage door injuries, recalls and the safety standard
What federal records show about who gets hurt, which products were recalled, and how the opener safety rule came about.
48 Garage door injuries: what the federal data does and does not show CPSC recorded 48 child entrapment deaths before the safety standard existed. That number produced the law. No current national estimate for garage doors alone can be published. Read the study 85 children Garage door injuries among children: what the federal data shows A 1996 peer-reviewed study found 85 children permanently injured or killed since 1974. 40% of tested openers failed to reverse on a child-sized mannequin, though 88% passed a wood-block test. Read the study 7 eyes Repair, not operation: where garage door injuries actually happen Fifty years of federal rules cover the door closing. None cover it being repaired. A Massachusetts Eye and Ear case series describes seven people blinded while trying, one losing an eye. Read the study 8 recalls Garage door recalls: the full record Eight recalls in thirty-five years, and only four are doors. The product behind most reported incidents is the storage rack above your car. Read the study 7 rulemakings The regulatory record behind garage door entrapment protection Seven CPSC rulemakings have amended the 1992 entrapment-protection rule. How a private UL revision becomes federal law in 30 days, tracked from the Federal Register. Read the study 4 recalls Bypassed and misaligned sensors: the bigger practical hazard Only four garage door or opener recalls exist in the CPSC database. The bigger risk is working sensors that get bypassed, misaligned or blocked, and nothing counts those. Read the study
Garage door openers: age, power and security
How old the openers in American garages are, what the labels mean, and what happens when the power or the network fails.
16.28m How many openers predate the federal safety standard? No federal dataset counts openers. What we can count: 16.28 million new single-family houses built with a garage before the safety standard applied. Read the study 7 events / 32 yr How often Americans actually replace a garage door opener No federal dataset counts opener replacements. We found seven documented events over 32 years. None of them is a measured wear-out rate. Read the study 1 survey, 2006 What the evidence actually says about opener service life The common “10 to 15 years” figure traces to one 2006 NAHB phone survey of manufacturers, which warns readers not to rely on it when buying. Read the study 0 standards The horsepower on a garage door opener box is not horsepower No DASMA data sheet or federal standard defines opener horsepower. Genie calls its own figure “HPc,” a comparison label. Only one of three model pages we checked states a door weight. Read the study 4,096 codes Fixed-code remotes: the other thing that changed in the 1990s Before rolling codes, remotes had as few as 256 to 4,096 possible codes. A 2015 device could try them all in about 8 seconds. Read the study 20 CVEs Smart garage openers and the security question Public security disclosures across four connected-opener platforms, from NVD and CISA. Two vendors patched within weeks. CISA says a third never responded. Read the study 1.4–26.9 hr When the power goes out, who cannot open their garage The standard emergency release works only from inside. In 2024, outage time across our states ran from 1.4 hours (AZ) to 26.9 hours (TX). Read the study One Which states require a garage door opener battery backup? California is the only state we could confirm: a $1,000 fine per opener sold or installed without one. The Senate’s own analysis said the batteries typically need replacing every three years. Read the study
How long springs and doors last
Spring ratings, real household use, door lifespan and what a warranty covers.
2.7–13.7 yr How long a garage door spring actually lasts Springs are rated in cycles, not years, and DASMA’s data sheet gives no lifespan. We convert cycles into years for real American households. Read the study 1.99x price Garage door spring cycle ratings, compiled One supplier’s own example: 1.99 times the price buys 5.4 times the rated cycles. DASMA says the rating is an estimate, not a guarantee. Read the study 1.9–6.7/day How many times a day does a garage door actually open? How often a garage door really opens: 1.9 to 6.7 times a day, depending on how many vehicles a household has. Modeled from federal travel data. Read the study 8–74 yr How long does a garage door last? “10 to 15 years” is the opener’s figure, not the door’s. Converting a spring’s cycle rating into years with federal trip data gives a much longer range. Read the study Parts only What garage door warranties actually cover, and what they leave out “Lifetime” means single-family residential use and covers parts only, never labor. Every warranty we read excludes coastal exposure. Read the study
Garage door prices, labor and insulation claims
Where the price, pay and payback numbers come from, and what the insulation figures on a door really measure.
40-pt gap Garage door replacement cost, with sources No dataset records what Americans pay. The $4,672 figure is modeled. It rose 29% since 2019, while producer prices for the door itself rose 69%. Read the study 10%/yr Tracking garage door prices against the Producer Price Index Metal-door producer prices rose about 10% a year since 2020, roughly four times any earlier decade in the 36-year series. The 2022 steel spike reversed; door prices did not. Read the study 2.03x gap What garage door labor actually costs, metro by metro From BLS QCEW pay data: a 2.03-times gap in average industry pay between the highest- and lowest-paid of the twelve largest metros. Read the study 268% Where the garage door ROI number comes from Cost vs. Value observes no house sales; its resale values are Realtor estimates. Over seven editions the door recouped under 100% for four years, then tripled. Read the study 5.2% air The R-value on a garage door is not the R-value of the garage door DASMA’s own data sheet says the R-value method “should not be used for garage door assemblies.” In its example, a twentieth of the number is the air next to the door. Read the study $1 kit, 0% Garage door insulation: what R-value actually delivers DOE treats an unheated garage as outside the home’s insulated shell and claims comfort only, with no bill-savings percentage. We found no federal source for “10–20% savings.” Read the study
Wind, hurricanes and hail
Wind ratings, product approvals, insurance credits and storm damage records for garage doors.
90% Garage doors and the hurricane code IBHS found 90% of homes whose garage door survived had no structural roof damage. How much housing was built before the debris-region rules took effect. Read the study 3 of 7 What post-storm damage assessments say about garage doors Three of seven federal and engineering damage assessments we reviewed caption a garage door. Hurricane Michael’s worst damage sat over three miles past the one-mile debris boundary. Read the study 54 approvals What the product approval register says about garage doors A Miami-Dade NOA and a Florida approval are not two separate checks. We opened 25 of 54 roll-up door approvals; only 24% were rated for the HVHZ. Read the study 1.95M units How much American housing actually sits in a wind-borne debris region Florida’s HVHZ is exactly Miami-Dade and Broward counties: 19.3% of the state’s housing in 2 of 67 counties. Palm Beach, next door, is not included. Read the study 108 vs 115 Wind mitigation credits: what a rated garage door is worth Florida’s form lists garage doors twice. A pressure rating earns Level D and puts you at A.2. Only an impact rating reaches A.1. Read the study 97,094 events Hail and the garage door: exposure, gauge and the claim No standard rates a garage door for hail, as DASMA’s own gauge chart says. NOAA’s storm database shows 97,094 hail events from 2015 to 2025, led by Texas, then Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Colorado. Read the study
Garage conversions, fire and flood rules
What the building code asks of a garage, what a conversion changes, and what fire and flood records show.
7 ft / 5.7 sq ft What a converted garage has to satisfy to be habitable space A garage and a bedroom are built on opposite assumptions. Four IRC sections show where they clash: ceiling height, egress, daylight and fire separation. Read the study 3,357 garages The garage conversion boom: what the permit record shows California’s ADU permits grew 4.3x from 2018 to 2025. At least 3,357 describe a garage conversion in their own notes, and 89% were planned as rentals. Read the study 3 provisions The fire separation between your garage and your house A wall, a self-closing door and a duct rule: three IRC provisions, quoted directly, plus the conversion trap that quietly removes one. Read the study 6,600/yr Garage fires: causes and losses An estimated 6,600 home garage fires a year, 30 deaths and $457 million in losses, from a federal study over a decade old that predates home EV charging. Read the study 1 NTSB case EV and lithium battery charging in garages: what the incident data shows so far The evidence is thin. NTSB’s whole case record has one federally investigated garage fire tied to an EV, and it was a crash, not a charging fire. Read the study Zero openings Garages below the flood elevation: what FEMA actually allows FEMA’s technical bulletin is clear: a garage door counts as zero flood openings, automatic or not, because power can’t be guaranteed. Read the study
American garages and the garage door trade
How many homes have a garage, how garages changed, and how the companies that serve them are licensed and insured.
45% → 88% The state of the American garage Our annual report. The garage became standard in America, and the South led it: a 43-point rise since 1971, the largest of any region. Read the study 41.9% How many American homes have a garage, and where? From EIA RECS 2020 microdata: 41.9% of occupied U.S. homes, 51.8 million, have an attached garage. Read the study r = 0.947 Garages in new American homes: fifty years of change Two Census construction series show a 0.947 correlation between bigger houses and more garages across 53 years, and the two periods where they split. Read the study 24% → 15% Cars got bigger. Garages did not. Light trucks are two-thirds of new vehicle production. The three-car garage peaked at 24% of new homes in 2015 and has fallen to 15%. Read the study 75.6% garaged The garage as the new utility room, by the numbers 1.12% of US households charge an EV at home. 75.6% of them have an attached garage, and just over half need a 240-volt circuit. Read the study 0 multi-state The largest verified garage door companies No company in our 3,901-company store works in more than one state. Overhead Door Company has 60 separately owned locations in all 10. Read the study 6 spellings Who licenses garage door installers? Almost no one California and Nevada have license classes naming this trade. Arizona records it as free text, spelled six ways across sixteen records. Read the study $0–$1M What insurance a garage door company must carry, state by state Three states require nothing. California requires a $25,000 bond but no separate liability insurance. Tennessee scales up to $1,000,000. Read the study
How we make every study checkable
Six rules every study on this page follows. They are what make a number here worth checking.
We read the primary source ourselves.
We do not cite an article that cites a source. We get the agency file, the register or the standard and compute the figure from it. If we could only reach a source through someone else, the study names them.
Every figure has a retrieval date.
Datasets get revised, registers get updated and codes get amended. A figure without the date it was read cannot be checked, so every study says when it was retrieved.
Facts, our math and our opinion are labeled.
When a source says something, we quote it. When we computed something, the page says “HyreGarage computation.” When we interpret, it says “HyreGarage analysis.” Mixing the three is how research turns into marketing.
Limits come first.
If a number is an upper bound, a range or a link rather than a cause, we say so before we give the number, not in a footnote after.
No national claims from our own store.
Our company records cover ten verified states. They support statements about those states and nothing wider. National statements rest on federal data.
We are not the contractor.
HyreGarage does not perform, supervise or warrant garage door work, rates no company, and publishes nothing here as engineering advice. Spring and cable work is specialist work, and we publish no instructions for it.
Questions
Who writes HyreGarage research?
The HyreGarage Research Desk. Every study names an author and an auditor, states the dataset it rests on, and gives the date that dataset was retrieved.
Where do the figures come from?
From primary sources we read directly: federal agency files, code and standards documents, and public registers. We do not cite an article that cites a source. If a source could only be reached through someone else, the study names them.
How can I tell a quoted figure from one HyreGarage calculated?
By the label. A source’s own statement is quoted. A figure we computed is marked “HyreGarage computation.” An interpretation is marked “HyreGarage analysis.”
Why do some studies say a number could not be found?
Because an honest gap is more useful than a borrowed number. Several studies list what we could not read and so did not write, instead of filling in a figure from a secondary source.
Does HyreGarage install or repair garage doors?
No. HyreGarage does not perform, supervise or warrant garage door work, and nothing here is engineering advice. Spring and cable work is specialist work, and we publish no instructions for it.
Does HyreGarage rank or endorse garage door companies?
No. No study here endorses a garage door company. Our company records cover ten verified states and support statements about those states only. National statements rest on federal data.
Written and audited by
HyreGarage Research Desk
Primary-source research, data analysis and fact checking
We are not a garage door company. We read the agency file, the code record, the standards document or the public register ourselves, compute the figure from it, and publish it with the source and the date we retrieved it.
Where a number cannot be traced to a primary source, we publish the shorter page and say what we could not verify. Our own company records cover ten states; nothing national is ever derived from them.
- 10
- states our own company records cover — and the limit of any claim made from them
- 3,901
- garage door companies in the store
- 457
- license records verified against a state board
- 0
- national claims made from a ten-state store
How this desk works
- Primary sources only. Injury counts come from CPSC. Housing counts come from the Census file, not from a summary of it. Code history comes from the building commission that adopted the code. We do not cite an article that cites a source; we retrieve the source and do the arithmetic ourselves.
- Every figure carries its retrieval date. Registers change, datasets are revised and codes are amended. A number without the date it was read cannot be checked, so every study states one.
- Fact, calculation and analysis are labeled apart. A quote is a quote, a HyreGarage computation says so, and an interpretation says “HyreGarage analysis”. Presenting our reading of a dataset as something the agency stated would be the easiest way to lose the only thing this desk is for.
- Limitations go above the fold. If a figure is an upper bound, a bracket, or an association rather than a cause, that is said before the figure is quoted rather than in a footnote underneath it.
- No DIY instructions for spring, cable or track work. Those components hold enough stored energy to cause serious injury, and CPSC records the consequences. We describe what has failed and what a competent repair involves; we do not tell you how to do it.
Authorship on this site is organizational: the analysis belongs to the desk rather than to a named individual, and we do not publish credentials we do not hold. Our editorial policy sets out how we source, date and correct what we publish.
HyreGarage is an independent information site. We are not a garage door company and we do not perform, supervise or warrant garage door work.