The garage door is definitely an essential part of any home, though it may not receive as much attention as, say, the kitchen or master bath. Nonetheless, when a garage door stops working correctly, it can feel like the most important part of the house. Fortunately, the largest moving part of your entire home doesn’t take much to keep it working throughout the year. Just keep these 10 essential tips in mind.
1. Watch It Work
Anytime you use your garage door, you have the perfect opportunity to make sure it’s working correctly. Watch to make sure it’s moving symmetrically and without any jerky motions along the way. Listen, too, for any worrisome noises that might suggest friction is an issue. Any grinding or scraping is a red flag.
2. Tighten Down Your Hardware
On average, your garage door goes up and down at least 1,000 times every year. This makes for a lot of vibrating that can eventually loosen important pieces of your door’s design. All it takes is inspecting these essential parts from time to time to ensure they’re still working properly. If you find any issues, a socket wrench should be enough to solve the problem.
3. Test the Door’s Balance
If the counterweight on your garage door isn’t providing the correct balance, your opener is having to work extra hard each time you open or close the door. Over time, it will eventually give up.
To test out your door’s balance, you just need to pull the release handle and then lower the door manually so that it’s about halfway open. At that point, the door should stay there by itself. If it doesn’t, your counterweight is probably unbalanced and you’ll need to call in a professional.
4. Examine Your Rollers
Each time you open or close your garage, rollers go to work keeping the door on track. Because they’re made of either steel or nylon, you only need to replace them about once every seven years. However, no two situations are the same. You may use your garage door more often than the average homeowner or live in a particularly brutal climate.
In any case, inspect your rollers regularly and keep an eye out for any damage. If you have to replace them, you can simply detach the roller brackets and swap the broken roller out for a new one.
5. Inspect the Weatherstripping
In order to keep the outside world where it belongs, your garage door should have weatherstripping running along the bottom of it. This precaution ensures that you get a nice, tight seal whenever the garage closes.
Give your weatherstripping a onceover from time to time and look for any areas where it has become brittle or just plain worn out. Any hardware or home improvement store will sell weatherstripping, making it a breeze to replace.
6. Add Lubricant
In order to fight off the effects of friction on your garage door’s many moving parts, you need to keep them nice and lubricated. To do this, add white lithium grease to your opener’s screw or chain. For the overhead springs, you can spray on a specialized lubricant made for this type of mechanism.
7. Examine the Cables
The one part of your garage door — aside from the counterweight — that you really don’t want to mess with is the cables that lift it up. These cables are under a lot of tension, meaning they could become hazardous if mishandled, and severely injure or even kill you.
However, this doesn’t have to stop you from examining them from time to time. If you do find issues, though, call in the professionals to handle repairs.
8. Test the Safety Features
Two mechanisms, a mechanical one and a photocell one, are responsible for safety measures related to your garage door. The former simply pulls the garage door back up if it comes in contact with any resistance. To make sure it’s still working properly, place some durable object in its way, like a brick or spare piece of wood.
To test the photocell feature, begin shutting the garage door and then put your foot through the invisible beam. Doing so should send the garage door headed in the opposite direction.
9. Clean Your Tracks Out
Without clean tracks, your rollers won’t get very far. So inspect them regularly for debris or other issues. If they’ve become bent, have a professional take care of repairs.
10. Keep Your Door Clean
Finally, just be sure you use a mild all‑purpose cleaner on your garage door regularly. This will also give you the opportunity to inspect your steel door for rust spots or your wood door for chips, warping or peeling paint.
All of the above steps are easy to carry out on a regular basis and most are completely free. The real advantage, though, is you’ll have a garage door that performs well throughout the year.
For a preventive maintenance or repair service done by professionnals contact us now. We serve Boston and surrounding areas (Natick, Newton, Framingham, etc.
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