Why We Love Martin Garage Doors
We work with a lot of great companies and vendors for our garage doors, openers, and other replacement parts, but we have a special place in our hearts for Martin Garage Doors here at A Plus Garage Doors.
Like A Plus Garage Doors, Martin Garage Doors is a local Utah company. Their headquarters have been based in Salt Lake City, Utah since 1942, but the company was first started in Santa Ana, California in 1936 by Leno Martin. And now more than ever, we believe it is crucial to the health of our local economy to seek out and support Utah businesses.
Here are some of the reasons why we love Martin garage doors.
Martin Garage Doors: A Local Experience
Companies that have been around for a long time and grown from a small team often turn into something completely different over time. But the folks at Martin Door take the same approach we do, which is to provide personalized customer service for every interaction, including having a live person answering the phone to answer questions instead of an automated system.
If you visit their headquarters in Salt Lake City during regular business hours, Martin Doors will gladly provide a tour of their manufacturing facility as well as a showroom with an array of garage door models and colors, with some unique historical pieces on display.
The Martin Door Showroom
Just to the right of the front-door entrance, you’ll find the showroom with many doors on display, from the standard models to more unique samples that you don’t see every day (including a copper garage door!).
One of my favorites of the bunch, the door pictured below is a replica of the style used when the company first started. Because steel was reserved for national defense purposes during World War II, these hinges were made from old army bunks that were cut and welded together.
In those days, the materials to build the door were transported on-site, then the door was framed and constructed in place. Unlike modern panel doors, these swung out as a single unit. They were sometimes referred to as “shin busters” or “chin busters” due to the injuries that could occur within the door’s broad swing radius.
The Production Floor
Before you go for the full tour, be advised that you should have some comfortable shoes on, as there’s a lot to explore in the 250,000 sq ft production floor. But there is also plenty to see and learn about the process to produce Martin’s garage doors.
Premium Safety Hardware
Martin garage doors have developed several proprietary safety features that go above and beyond what some manufacturers provide in the garage door industry. Some estimates indicate that around 30,000 garage door injuries occur annually, so safe installation and operation is always a concern of ours.
FingerShield
One of the prominent innovations to come out of Martin garage doors is its unique safety joint system called FingerShield, which prevents injuries to fingers and other accidents by minimizing the space between panels while a door is moving up and down. The image below shows how this works when the door is in motion.
Low-Profile Hinges
Standard door hinges tend to be bulky, which has two side effects: (1) they stick out from the door and pose a risk of accidental collision to hands, the head, etc., and (2) they increase the possibility of pinching during operation.
Martin’s premium hinges, on the other hand, are made to minimize these risks by being smaller and more than strong enough to tackle the same job.
Specialized Tracks
Martin includes track systems with its doors that prevent accidental injury and property damage by reducing the holes on the sides of a track.
While the odds of this happening may seem small, you definitely don’t want to risk having your fingers or a rake handle in the track when the door is moving. We’ve had several emergency calls where a door comes off track due to unexpected obstructions and can vouch for the importance of small but important details like these.
Side-Mounted Springs
Most garage door systems use springs mounted in the center of the torsion tube, the bar that the springs are attached to. While this works fine for many installations, if the hardware is mounted improperly or the structure that the center bracket attaches to is compromised, the mechanism can fail or cause serious injury.
