Project of the Month Winner – Griswold Construction and Overhead Door
Today we are pleased to announce our latest Project of the Month winner – Griswold Construction and Overhead Door of Hudson, Colorado. They serve the Denver metropolitan area and about half of their workload comes from service calls, but their excellent installation work is what is being celebrated today. You may recognize them as a previous winner for their Lake Arbor Golf Course project from November 2017, and today we’re showcasing another one of their beautiful commercial projects at Acreage by Stem Ciders in Lafayette, Colorado.
The project we present to you today is for an installation of eleven doors in total. Six of those doors were field-painted commercial insulated steel Therma Series doors (Model 308), and the other five doors were our Dark Bronze Anodized commercial full view aluminum Model 800 Series. Three of the 800 Series doors had Low E Tempered Clear Glass, and the other had Low E Clear Glass. In our interview with Owner Tim Griswold, he said that he chose Northwest Door for this project because we offer a high quality product that he’s been using for years, and he likes the level of customer service we offer. “I know the girls that work in the DC over here very well and everybody’s always treating me really well. I think I owe some of my success to Northwest Door”.
Faurot Construction, the builder for this project (plans by Daedalus Studio and R&R Engineers), has been one of Griswold’s customers since they opened up. They use Griswold for a lot of projects, so they invited him to bid on the Stem Ciders project and he was awarded the job. The only challenge Tim said he ran into during the project was having a few doors on a forklift ramp in a corner and having to make the big door go up over the smaller dock doors. He also mentioned although it’s common for doors that sit up on countertops to be used as serving counters in a restaurant or bar setting, the ones on this project actually open right up to the bar so people can watch the bartenders make drinks.
Griswold Construction and Overhead Door has been in business for nine years, but Mr. Griswold has been in the garage door industry for 24 years and has been using Northwest Door products for as long as he can remember. 24 years is a lot of time to gain some interesting industry insight and stories, and Tim was able to share some of that with us. When asked for something he thinks the average person would not know about the garage door industry, he mentioned how many average people attempt to work on their own garage doors that don’t understand how they work or that there’s some mathematics involved, especially when working with springs, cables, drums and other hardware. This is extremely dangerous and can result in injury and even death if something is done improperly.
“I was working on my own 4 wheelers and dirt bikes when I was eight years old”, Tim cited as he explained how his mechanical inclination has made his job easier, “but when it comes to operators and wiring and certain access controls, that took a while for me to learn”. This is another thing that many people outside of the garage door industry may not understand – installing and fixing garage doors and operators is no easy task. Northwest Door always recommends people who are not experienced with installing or servicing garage doors to hire a professional if they need work done.
Most garage door technicians and installers have had to work around difficult and odd spaces in the field, but not many have an installation story like Tim’s at the Dillon Reservoir in Colorado:
“They decided they were going to put security gates in front of the spillways so people couldn’t boat up the dam and blow it up. It was the middle of winter, so it was below zero out. The bottom of the spillway had flowing water and we had to install a rolling gate over the spillway that rolled down into the water. I put on a fall protection harness and they hung me from a crane and the crane operator lowered me down to drill the holes for the guides”.
Owner Tim Griswold
Griswold Construction and Overhead Door is currently just a two man show, but that doesn’t stop them from taking on challenging projects. “I mean we’re not a big company but we’re not afraid to take on anything and everything,” said Mr. Griswold, “I’m not trying to get huge and I know I’m not going to make millions off it, but I love what I do and it’s important that when I leave a job the people I’ve worked for are happy”. Although Griswold does about 80% commercial work, Tim said that it’s the special residential projects where he gets to install unique doors for people that really drives him to keep working hard. “I take pride in what I do and I like to make people happy,” he said. When he’s not working, Tim enjoys going on cruises, riding ATVs, camping, fishing, working out and running marathons and Spartan races.
Interested in our 800 or Therma Series doors? Looking to start a new project? Give Tim a call if you’re in the area (720 299-5848), or visit our Dealer Locator and find someone near you!