One of the common causes for a home roof blow-off during a hurricane is the garage door blowing into the garage from the wind's pressure. Once the door blows in all the hurricanes wind pressure increases the pressure in the garage enough to lift the entire roof from the walls resulting in total destruction of the home. A simple reinforcement may help reduce the blow-in possibility.
The top door panel is reinforced by the garage door opener and needs no additional reinforcement. However, the center of the bottom door panel such as on a 16-foot door has no reinforcement and is the weakest part of the entire door and easily blows in.
The simplest reinforcement is to use a ½ inch diameter by 12 inches long re-bar at that center point of the door. I drilled a hole into the foot/closing assist to accept the re-bar and another hole in the garage floor that lets the re-bar slip into about 3 inches deep. It was about an hour project and only cost a couple dollars. For that center point of the door the wind pressure would have to be strong enough to shear the re-bar off which is unlikely that would ever happen.
Here’s the re-bar in place, the door can now resist a lot of wind pressure pushing on it. Pulling the door out is not a big consideration as the foot assist mounting screws do offer some resistance to pulling forces.
A simple hole drilled in the garage floor to accept the re-bar.
The re-bar in the concrete drilled hole.
The hole drilled into the foot assist for the re-bar to slip through.
The same assist but from the bottom showing the re-bar drilled hole.
How to use it?
Simple, close the garage door and slip the re-bar through the foot assist drilled hole and then into the hole drilled in the concrete floor!
