Painting a Garage Door in Florida Sun: What the Door Makers Say

On many Florida homes, the garage door is the biggest single painted surface you see from the street. When it fades, chalks or rusts along the bottom, the whole house looks tired.

Steel garage doors take paint well. The catch is that door makers are specific about how, and a few of their rules matter more here than up north because of the sun.

Check the warranty before you open a can

Start with the label and the paperwork, not the paint.

• Amarr: “Non-factory painting of garage doors voids the paint finish warranty.”
• Clopay: “Failure to follow these instructions will void warranty of your door.”

If your door is new enough to still be under a finish warranty, that is worth knowing first. If it is a faded door that is long out of warranty, the decision is easy.

While you are looking, find the door’s permanent label. Clopay notes that garage doors are required to carry a label showing the maker, model, wind pressure ratings and test standard, which is how an inspector or insurer confirms a door is hurricane rated. Keep it readable: mask it off before painting.

Dark colors and Florida sun

This is the Florida-specific one.

Both makers warn that dark colors can make a door bow. Amarr: “Doors painted with dark color may cause the door to experience thermal-bowing.” Clopay: doors painted dark colors “may be pre-disposed to thermal bowing, especially when in direct sunlight.”

Amarr explains why. Thermal bowing happens in a closed door with insulated panels when the outside skin gets much hotter than the inside skin, and the panels are held at each end so they cannot move. The outside skin expands, and the door bends. Amarr says it is a normal trait of insulated doors and “not considered a product defect,” which means a bowed door is not a warranty claim.

Dark colors make that skin hotter. Clopay says plainly that “dark colors absorb more light and heat,” and it rates colors by light reflectance value, or LRV: how much light a painted surface reflects, on a scale from 0 (black) to 100 (white). Clopay’s color guide calls for solar reflective paint on doors painted darker colors.

Then there is the sun. The EPA rates a UV index of 8 and up as very high to extreme and advises extra care from late morning through mid-afternoon, the same hours a south or west-facing door takes its hardest sun.

So if you want a dark garage door:

1. Ask the door maker whether your model is rated for dark colors.
2. Think about which way the door faces. A shaded or north-facing door is a much safer place for a dark color than a west-facing one.
3. Consider a mid-tone instead of near black. It reads as a strong color from the street with less heat.

Prep: where the paint job is decided

The door makers’ steps line up with how we prep any door: clean, sand, fill, prime, then paint.

1. Clean it properly. Clopay suggests a trisodium phosphate solution, about 1/3 cup of powder to 1 1/2 to 2 gallons of water, or a biodegradable cleaner. Florida doors carry pollen, mildew and grime that paint will not stick to.
2. Sand or buff the imperfections and look for bare metal. Amarr: “Visually inspect your garage door for exposed metal.”
3. Prime bare spots and rust. Amarr says to use a primer “designed to protect galvanized steel from rusting.” Clopay strongly recommends a bonding primer as the first coat for adhesion.
4. Paint within a day of cleaning. Amarr says to paint within 24 hours after cleaning, before new dust and pollen settle.
5. Follow the paint’s own label for temperature, sun and number of coats. In Florida that usually means painting the door when it is in shade, not at 2 in the afternoon with the sun on it.

The paint itself

• Type: both makers call for a high quality 100% acrylic exterior latex.
• Never oil: Amarr says “Do NOT use oil based paint.” Clopay adds that oil-based or alkyd-modified paint will void the warranty.
• Sheen: Clopay lists flat, satin or semi-gloss as acceptable.

We use Sherwin-Williams exterior coatings on every job. Amarr even offers its factory color option in Sherwin-Williams colors, so a color match to the rest of the house is straightforward.

Wood garage doors

Wood doors are a different job. Amarr says all six sides of each section must be finished, and that “dark shades or stains aren’t recommended for wood garage doors with southern or western exposures.” It also warns that paint adds weight, which can affect the spring settings and the opener. If you have a wood door, plan the color and the coats with that in mind.

On a Sarasota or Manatee job

Garage doors are part of our trim and door painting: sanded, filled and finished in Sherwin-Williams paint, backed by a one-year warranty with free touch-ups. If the door faces the afternoon sun, talk through the color on the free estimate before you commit to something dark.

For the front door, see front door colors in Florida sun.