58 | MANUFACTURING Custom Made Garage Doors T T Rosa Watson Designer doors setting the standard Designs include the Phoenix flat panel door alongside the Idaho negative detail flat panel door, which are both insulated. A family-run business near Rolleston is quietly producing designer garage doors that are becoming regarded as the best in the country. Custom Made Garage Doors has been producing iconic and unique garage doors for over 20 years, started by Mal Hurrell. The business has grown to be sought after in the building industry, and now has three generations working in it. Mal started out working for a well-established Christchurch company Nightingale Garage Doors for 22 years. In 2001, he and his wife started up their own garage door hardware business, supplying door components to Australia out of a small workshop in Tuam Street in Christchurch. “Eventually a few builders tracked me down to see if I would manufacture their doors for them,” Mal explains. “With that in mind, we had one of the largest building companies in Christchurch approach me to supply and install 100 garage tilt doors for storage units they were developing. “This contract turned into approximately 500 doors over the next couple of years and with that, my son Kurt and daughter Jo came on board along with another two staff members to help with production throughput.” In 2004, he was asked to design a flat panel insulated sectional garage door, which has gone on to become the company’s centrepiece. “Now we are known throughout the country for the best flat panel door on the market.” Their designs include the Phoenix flat panel door alongside the Idaho negative detail flat panel door, which are both insulated. With an increasing demand for architectural garage doors, they decided to build a new purpose-built workshop on their rural block on the outskirts of Rolleston. “This enabled us to concentrate on research and development on our new architectural designs, like our cedar doors and our glass doors, corten doors, and designer doors,” Mal said. With more new designs in place, they started marketing their doors nationwide and before they knew it were supplying a number of garage door companies around New Zealand. “All our architectural doors are manufactured in-house, with 95 per cent being insulated. “We added on a couple of more staff including our grandson and his partner, so now a three-generation business.” The company works with a number of local builders and housing companies, such as DJ Hewitt, Clive Barrington, and Gregg Builders. “All top end companies and great to deal with.” The range of garage doors start with affordable right up to a .75 Zincalume flat panel smartline range, and a number of top range custom doors including cedar, glass, corten doors. “Our top range of doors are endless, basically whatever the client wants we are there to help, dealing with the builders and architects on a one-to-one basis to get it right.” In the last few years, the flush mount sectional doors had become increasingly popular, Mal said. These doors fit flush with the exterior of the house, complimenting and aligning with the cladding. “These can be pretty much any design to suit the exterior feature.” In 2018, the company branched out into Central Otago, opening an office in Wanaka that services the Southern Lakes area under Custom Made Garage Doors Southern Lakes. There are five staff based there - branch manager Tim and sales manager Steve as well as Julie and Amie in the office. Doors are delivered to the Wanaka office weekly and a truck delivers doors to the North Island every two to three weeks. The Christchurch team travel as far south as Timaru and as far north as Kaikoura to install doors. The company is also an authorised dealer for Merlin Door Openers in Christchurch and Wanaka. And adding to the reportoire, Custom Made also manufactures gates of different styles that can match a newly built garage door.
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