Nothing beats stepping onto your favorite golf course: the smell of freshly cut grass mixes nicely with the warm sunlight and sound of other golfers mingling on the greens. As everyone makes their way onto the fairways (and hopefully no sand traps), it’s a great day for golf and shooting for that often-elusive hole-in-one.



If you’re an avid golfer or even a beginner, you probably know that the lower your score, the better. According to Golfweek, “Your success is determined by the lowest score, or the fewest number of shots taken on the hole or in the round.” That’s why you’d want to make a birdie (one stroke less than par), an eagle (where a golfer completes a hole in two fewer shots than par), a double eagle, where a par-5 is completed in two shots, and avoid bogeys (one shot over par) and double bogeys (two shots over par).

The Rolling Door Lexicon

Just like golf has its own vocabulary, so do rolling steel doors. In the rolling door industry, you’re likely to encounter a host of new terms. To help you navigate conversations, we created a glossary of the most commonly used words and phrases: https://www.cornelliron.com/architect-tools-and-resources/industry-glossary.

What are R-Value and U-Factor for Roll-Up Doors?

In this blog, we’d like to focus on two terms that may not be the first few you recall when thinking about rolling doors: R-Value and U-Factor. Both relate to the insulation and its performance in a rolling door’s thermal resistance ratings. R-Value and U-Factor are important to your door’s energy performance and the amount of heat flow or energy transfer it’s able to resist.

However, just because both terms deal with a door’s insulation and what it can do for performance does not mean that they measure the same thing or are tested in a similar way.

• R-Value is the capacity of an insulating material to resist heat flow. A higher number on a door’s R-Value means that it contains more insulation. R-Value usually only applies to the door curtain.

Think of R-Value like the final score in bowling: the higher the number, the better.

• U-Factor measures the rate of heat transfer of the entire door assembly, including the guides, head, and hood. U-Factor is an independently tested number while R-Value is more of an estimation. Keeping R-Value in mind while also considering a door’s U-Factor can give you a better picture of what you’re looking for in a rolling door with thermal and heat flow resistance.

Like in golf, the lower your number is for U-Factor, the better.

Explore R-Value and U-Factor in detail on the blog: “The Difference Between R-Value and U-Factor for Roll Up Doors”

If you’re not sure which type of rolling door will best suit your needs or would like to discuss R-Value or U-Factor in more detail, our Architectural Design Support (ADS) Team is here for you.

Reach out here:

• by email: ArchitecturalDesignSupport@cornellcookson.com
• by phone: 833.958.1273