I have three Fatezzi faux wood garage doors installed at my house. I'm glad I did not go with wooden doors. My brother's wooden door had multiple issues with the wood wrapping after a year of ownership. He had a wood cladded over a steel insulated door. It's not a solid wood door. Perhaps it's not as good as a solid wooden door. Maybe a solid wood door would performed better. I don't know. One thing for sure is that the Fatezzi faux wooden garage doors genuinely look like real wood. People who have seen my doors did not know they are not made from natural wood until I told them about the Fatezzi synthetic material. My doors have gone through two winters (including the last two recent heavy snow storms that went through the North East) and two summers to date and they performed as advertised. No issues whatsoever. They are more expensive than the typical steel insulated garage doors but the look of wood adds value, character and curb appeal to my house. Pricing is comparable to solid wood doors and wood panel/cladded doors. The big advantage over natural wood is the low maintenance aspect of the Fatezzi door. Hope it helps.

Stick with something you can get service on by more than one dealer. Clopay or Amarr are just two that parts and service are available from "any" door dealer. Overhead Door Co. is good but It is a McDonalds hamberger. You are really stuck with them for the rest of the life of the door. So if it was not a great experience, your stuck. You have a door installed, you decide your not really happy with the company, or the person that did the work, so you call someone else that also carries that door product for Non-warranty service couple of years later. With Overhead door co., you may not be able to do this. Your kind of "locked into them". Wayne Dalton is good but stay away from their, "Spring in a pipe" Lowes sells them too. They never work correctly. I get calls to service them often. I won't touch them anymore. You will have to contact them, (Wayne Dalton). Even they don't like them. They also came up with the "I Drive" door operator. That one was and Is still a big bomb also. Do your self a favor, stick with popular door names, with door openers also, otherwise no one will want to service them later... Dan

Is it totally smooth or does it have that slight woodgrain texture to it? If it is slightly textured, then there is no reason to spray it or bring it to an auto body shop. I just roll em and backbrush em and they come out perfect...no primer needed, just make sure they are clean. You would use the same paint you can use on the stucco....100 percent acrylic.

Thanks, all. The aluminum is twice the price of the steel, with an R-value of 5 v. 12. I think we've decided to with the steel for now, knowing this is something we can upgrade later. I just can't see paying double, especially since the insulation is so low. Also, I can see the difference now that I'm looking for it, but I would not have noticed had it not been pointed out to me, especially since we're painting the garage door body color with the goal that it fade away, rather than being a feature to be noticed.