Overhead and Hangar Doors for Texas Metal Buildings
A hangar door is the biggest moving part most owners will ever buy, and it hangs on a building that was never designed to carry it unless somebody planned for it. A 50 foot wide door can weigh several tons. Raise it, lower it, push wind against it and let it dry out in a Texas summer, and it will find any weakness in the header, the jambs or the slab under the track.
We install overhead and large-opening doors on aircraft hangars, equipment buildings, farm shops and fire-truck bays, and we plan the opening before the frame is ordered. That order of operations matters. The door fixes the clear width, the clear height, the header depth and the structural reactions at the jambs. If those numbers are decided after the steel is fabricated, the fix is a bigger bill and a longer wait.
Texas has a long list of airports that look nothing like each other, from big commercial fields to a general aviation strip with a gravel apron. The doors we supply and hang suit each of them. We will walk through the options with you in plain terms and tell you what each costs to buy, run and maintain.
Where hangar doors get used in this state
General aviation fields do a lot of quiet work in Texas. Mesquite Metro Airport in Mesquite is publicly owned and operated, with a 6,000 foot lighted runway and an instrument landing system, and general aviation makes up about three quarters of its daily operations. Lancaster Regional Airport, southeast of Lancaster's center, serves as a city-owned reliever for the two big Dallas fields, with a single 6,502 foot runway. In Arlington, the municipal airport sits entirely inside the city and is also a reliever for the larger fields, and a helicopter manufacturer operates there.
Fields like these are where owners build box hangars, T-hangars, shop hangars and maintenance bays. Most are pre-engineered steel with a clear span interior and a wide door opening on one or both ends. Our aircraft hangar work covers the whole building, and the doors are the part that usually decides how the frame is designed.
How we pick a door and size the opening
We start with the aircraft, not the catalog. We want the wingspan, the tail height, the tow vehicle and whether the owner expects to taxi in or tow in. Then we add clearance on every side, since a wingtip that clears by two inches will eventually meet the jamb. From there the choices narrow: a hydraulic bifold door folds upward from the bottom and leaves a flat apron, a sliding or stacking door runs on a track and suits very wide openings, and a sectional or rolling door works for smaller shop bays where the aircraft are modest or the use is mixed.
Each type has its own demands on the building. A hydraulic door pulls hard on the header and the corner columns when it opens and closes. A sliding door needs a long wall or a canopy to park on and a floor track that stays clean. A sectional door wants headroom for its tracks. We work from the manufacturer's loads and send them to the building engineer, so the frame is designed for them from the start rather than patched later.
Wind, power loss and keeping people out of the way
A large door is also a big sail. Texas weather can bring hail, straight-line wind and tornadoes, and the statewide record for 2024 was 878 hail events and 169 tornadoes. Doors are rated for design wind speeds, and the rating has to match what the building engineer used. Open doors in a gust can be as hard on a frame as closed ones, so we check the stacked and parked positions as well as the closed one, and we explain how to secure a door before a storm.
Safety on the user's side is just as concrete. Photo eyes, edge sensors and manual releases need to work when the power does not. A hangar with a hydraulic door needs a hand pump or a battery backup, and a sliding door needs a way to open by hand without a winch. We test every release before we leave, show the owner how each one works, and leave the instructions on the wall in plain sight. Every crew follows the same fall protection rules we use on structural steel erection when we are setting headers and hanging door hardware at height.
What the price is made of
The door itself is usually the largest single line in a hangar buyout after the frame and the slab. Cost scales with clear width more than with height, and a hydraulic bifold costs more than a sliding door of the same size but often saves time and floor space at the apron. Insulated skins, windows, personnel doors built into the leaf, and powered operators all add up. So does freight, because a big door is long and heavy and needs a flatbed and a lift to unload.
Installation adds items that never appear on a door quote: a reinforced header, extra jamb columns, a slab edge and a track embed set in concrete. If the slab has already been poured when the door is chosen, cutting in the track pit is slow, noisy and expensive. This is why we ask owners to choose a door before the pour, and why our foundation work includes door embeds and apron slopes in the layout.
Where the door fits in the rest of the project
Doors are one piece of a building that has to work as a whole. The wall panels, trim and flashing around the opening keep water out of the track and the header. Insulation and a good bottom seal keep a hangar usable in July heat. Lighting, a fire suppression plan and an electrical service for the operators come from other trades, and we coordinate them so nobody cuts into the wall panels twice.
Outside the airport fence, the same equipment shows up on shops and bays at aviation operations, ag-service shops and public works yards. A big overhead door on a fleet building is, in the end, a close cousin of a hangar door, and aircraft hangar projects and fleet buildings share many details about headers, wind and operators.
Plan the opening before the steel is ordered
Tell us the aircraft or equipment that needs to pass through, the width and height you have in mind, and where the building will sit. We will price the door with the frame and the foundation so the opening is right the first time.
Common Questions
What door type is best for a private box hangar?
For one or two small aircraft, a hydraulic bifold or a single-leaf sliding door is common. If you want a flat apron with no track, bifold wins. If cost matters most and the opening is wide, sliding is often cheaper. We size the opening to the aircraft first and then compare.
Can I add a larger door to a building I already own?
Sometimes, but the header and jamb columns usually need reinforcing, and the wall panels around the opening have to be cut and re-trimmed. The building engineer should check the frame before any cutting. We have seen it done well, but we always do the engineering first.
How long do hangar doors take to arrive?
Lead time depends on the type and the manufacturer, and it can run from several weeks to a few months. Order the door as early as the design allows, and give us the clear opening so the structure can be sized before steel is released.
What happens to the door during a Texas storm?
Doors have design wind ratings, and a closed, locked door is far safer than one left partly open. We show owners where the locking points are and recommend checking seals and hardware before storm season. If a door is out of adjustment, it should be fixed before the wind arrives.
