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  • Garage Greatness: Building Your Own Nest

    How often do you adjust your home thermostat? Many thermostats are outdated eyesores, installed by contractors who are more interested in getting the lowest possible bid than they are in the comfort of their home’s future inhabitants. Also, most homeowners use their thermostat in an inefficient way, and since home temperature control accounts for as much as 10% of total energy usage in the US, even just slightly wasteful habits can mean hundreds of dollars of cost for each household – hundreds of millions, across the country. Tony Fadell is the man behind Nest, the smart thermostat that is designed to solve these problems, and he is more qualified than anyone to create cutting edge technology: before he was prototyping a thermostat in a Palo Alto garage, he was creating the iPod and iPhone at his previous executive position with Apple.

  • Garage Project: Hot Rod Fever!

    People use their garages for all kinds of things, but consistently we see two uses that stand out as the most common. Many people store things in the garage, and many (although perhaps fewer than you’d expert!) also keep their cars there. For some people, however, they can practice their hobby and keep their cars indoors at the same time. For anyone who collects hot rods or considers themselves a hobbyist mechanic, the thought of leaving their beautiful custom car outside, exposed to the elements, is unthinkable. The garage has always been home to tinkerers and auto experts, but some modern chop shops take this fascination to a whole new level.

  • Ring a Bell: Alexander Graham Bell Invents the Telephone

    Alexander Graham Bell lived from 1847 until 1922, and in those years he had a remarkable life of innovation and advocacy. He is best known for being the first person to patent a practical telephone, one of the greatest innovations to human communication of all time, but in his life Bell also addressed many other areas of interest to him, mostly regarding deafness and elocution. Bell’s legacy shaped human history and his inventions were critical to the continuing progress of technology, but what is commonly forgotten about his work is that he got his start in the garage – or, to be more accurate, the carriage house!

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    Shut The (Garage) Door on Burglars!

    We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again – the most important step a homeowner can take to protecting the contents of their garage is to close the garage door! Although that might sound obvious, everyone can remember a time that they left their garage door open. Maybe, some of you reading this routinely leave your door open. Or maybe, you were doing some yard work in the backyard and left the door open on the front of your home so you could put your tools away. The simple convenience of not having to worry about the door is appealing, but ask yourself if it is worth risking a break in – or worse – and you might reconsider.

  • Doggie Day Care

    The summer may be coming to a close, but that doesn’t mean that the heat is going anywhere! All of us here at A Plus Garage Doors are huge animal fans, but we often can’t bring our pets with us when we leave the home. Most stores won’t allow pets of course, and with the temperature outside, leaving them in the car isn’t an option. Although there may be no easy solution to this problem in the Charlotte area, Dr. Mary Traverse from Austin, Texas, has found a way to let pet owners take their dogs with them on errands, without placing them at risk.

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    Garage Mahal: A Shrine to The Carolina Panthers

    There’s just nothing like the feeling of being in a good sports bar. The camaraderie, cheering, and decor combine to make an experience greater than just watching a game. For many, the gameday tradition of visiting their favorite bar, or even just inviting friends over to crowd around the television, is as integral a part of the sport as the actual game. With the preseason ending and Football season quickly approaching, everyone is looking for the best place to watch the games. For Cindy and Bill Buchanan, they never have to look very far. Their garage is possibly the largest collection of Carolina Panthers memorabilia in the world, and they get seventy-five of their friends together to watch the Panther’s away games in it every year.

  • 3 More Garage Band Success Stories!

    There isn’t always an easy solution to a loud home. With children, television, and the rumbles or beeps that come with any appliance, finding peace and quiet in your home can be difficult. Many of these noises are unavoidable, but sometimes the secret is fairly simple. Loud hobbies or guitar practice are typically sent to the one room in the house where noises can be separated from the rest of your living space – the garage. This tradition, practiced by hobbyist woodworkers and middle-school bandmates alike has given rise to many of the greatest bands of all time. Last Monday, we looked at four chart toppers that begun playing together in the garage – The Who, Nirvana, Ramones, and The Kinks. Today, we’re going to continue the trend by talking about the origins of The Runaways, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and The Yardbirds. These three classic artists begun playing together in the garage, and from there successfully moved into performing packed amphitheaters around the world.

  • DIY: Adding Weatherstripping to Your Garage Door

    If you read our previous blog post about R-Value, you probably know that insulating your garage is an important step in keeping your utility bills down and making your garage a pleasant room to be in during the heat of summer or the cold of winter. But if you’re not interested in upgrading to a better insulated garage door, your next best bet might be adding weatherstripping (also called astragal) around your door. We’ll walk you through this simple DIY procedure for sealing the top, sides, and bottom of your door, all of which can be done on a tiny budget.

  • Your Home’s Secret Energy Cost!

    Can you imagine life without a garage door opener? Your parents or grandparents lived without them for years, of course, but the modern convenience of pulling up your driveway and seeing the door already opening is a welcome sight. The concept of having to park your car in front of the door, get out into the heat or rain, and manually lift the door isn’t just annoying, it is also a huge safety risk. Your garage door opener is responsible for holding the door closed until your specially coded remote opens it. What you probably don’t know about your opener is that it might be costing you hundreds of dollars a year.

  • Finding Treasure: Fisher Research Labs

    Who hasn’t fantasized about discovering a buried stash of old valuables, or uncovering a pirate’s treasure from the beach? Children and adults alike love to rediscover the past, and one of the most fun and potentially lucrative ways to do that comes with treasure hunting. Hobbyists and professionals who search through ruins, farmsteads and beaches for relics from another time capture the imagination of us all, and hearing about someone finding a lost wedding ring or handful of colonial-era coins makes you wish that you’d been the one searching your backyard! This desire is exactly the reason that led Dr. Gerhard Fisher to patent the metal detector and found Fisher Research Labs, an ongoing world leader in metal detectors. Fisher founded his company in 1931 in Palo Alto, California, inside the garage attached to his home.

  • How to Upgrade your Garage Door: Painting it!

    Is your garage door a white rectangle? Most doors are, and although there’s nothing wrong with a simple solution, some homes simply don’t look as good with a white door. Maybe your home’s exterior is better suited for a wooden door, or a door colored in a less traditional tone. Some homes can match the styling of their door’s glass windows to the styling of their entry door or nearby exterior windows. Some homeowners choose to make their door pop by painting it red, blue, green, or painting it with a bold pattern. Even just changing the hardware on your door’s exterior to emulate a carriage house door. Basically, if you’ve got an older door or a plain door, you might be missing out on one of the best ways to express your personality on the outside of your house!

  • Your Garage’s Curb Appeal

    Whenever you consider making a large change to your home, it is a good idea to keep resale value in mind. Unless you plan on owning your home for the rest of your life, you will need to put it back on the market at some point. If you make undesirable changes to your home in order to make it more appropriate for your living situation, you might find yourself regretting the choice when your house languishes, unsold, for months. Many homeowners wonder if converting their garage to a living space would give them a leg up against the competition, and others don’t know if they can expect to recoup the cost of a new garage door when they sell. We’ve done the research and can pass our findings on to you, so that you can be an informed consumer.