Door Stile

A door stile is the vertical framing member inside a garage door section. Stiles run from the top rail to the bottom rail of the section, dividing the interior width into panels and providing the points where hardware attaches. Each section of a sectional door contains at least two stiles.

End stiles sit at the left and right edges of every section. The hinges that carry the rollers bolt to the end stiles. These hinges are called edge hinges or roller hinges and are numbered from the bottom: the number-1 hinge is between the bottom two sections, and hinge numbers increase going up.

Center stiles span the mid-point of wider sections. They prevent the section face from flexing in the middle, which would look bad and could cause the panel skin to crack. Center hinges, which hold adjacent sections together at the mid-span, bolt to the center stile on the section below and the bottom rail of the section above.

On a flush-panel steel door, stiles may be hidden behind a single sheet of steel facing, so from the outside the door looks like a solid flat surface. On a raised-panel door, the stiles are visible as the vertical frame members surrounding each recessed panel.

A bent or cracked stile is a common result of vehicle impact. It shows up as a section that no longer lies flat or a hinge that tips at an angle. Replacing a stile requires removing the section and the facing.

The bottom rail and the meeting rail are the horizontal counterparts to the stile, completing the rectangular frame of each section.