Quick Garage Door Maintenance Tips

The garage door normally represents the largest moving part within your entire home. Furthermore, it’s used multiple times every day at any hour and also in all seasons. In order to keep your garage door operating efficiently for decades to come, it is very important for one to take time and perform regular maintenance as well as preventive care.

Basic, routine maintenance can help in extending the life of the garage door as well as the opener. It’s highly recommended to check and test your garage door system on a monthly basis. This includes looking at the garage door’s opener, rollers, cables, springs as well as the pulleys for any signs of wear. You should also make sure that the door is well balanced and lubricated. If you are going to change one garage door cable, you should change them all at the same time. If one spring has gone bad, the other won’t be far behind. It is surprisingly hard to find garage door torsion springs for sale, so you may have to look around quite a bit or you can go to the Garage Door Nation website.

Garage door maintenance is not always easy but it can save one from hearing the screeching sound each time you hit the garage door’s opener. Since we open and also close our garage door averagely 6 times each day, you can just imagine the level of wear and tear that occurs. However, there are always tips that you can use so as to maintain your garage door. Here are quick tips for garage door maintenance:

Look and Listen

The most vital preventive step that one can always take is by observing your garage doors while in action each time that you make use of it. Is the garage door moving smoothly or whether it’s jerky in certain places? Do the doors operate silently or if it makes scraping or even grinding noise? Do the sides of your door system (springs, cables and pulleys) look symmetrical? This will enable you to easily find out the areas that require to be fixed.

Tighten up the Garage Door Hardware

An average garage door normally moves upwards and downwards over one thousand times within a year. This is a lot of vibration and movement that can loosen the garage door’s hardware. As a result, one can examine and also tighten all the bolts and roller brackets using the socket wrench.

Test the Garage Door’s Balance

In the event that the door isn’t balanced properly, the opener will certainly have to work extra hard thus reducing the chances of lasting for a long time.
After you have disconnected the opener just by pulling down the release handle (mostly a red cord), you ought to manually move the garage door nearly halfway up. In the event that it fails to stay then the counterweight system will have been balanced improperly. However, a garage door’s spring adjustment is mostly best done by the professionals.

Inspect and then Replace the Rollers

The rollers, whether they are nylon or steel, have to be inspected two times a year and then replaced every 7 years. However, this can be done more times if you normally use the garage door several times during the day.

Worn, chipped or even cracked rollers must be replaced as faster as possible. This can be done by removing the roller brackets and then reinstalling those that aren’t attached directly to a door’s cable system.

Replace the Weather Stripping

In the event that the rubber seal strip that’s found at the bottom of a door is cracked or brittle, you ought to replace it straightaway in a bid to keep all the elements outside the house. Weather stripping is normally sold through the foot at the home improvement stores or at a hardware store. You just have to cut to the correct size and then insert into grooves with a wide angle of flange found inside the garage door.

Lubrication

It is highly recommended to regularly lubricate all of moving parts of a garage door during all maintenance sessions. This includes rollers, chains, bearings, hinges and springs. To start, you should put a drop of engine oil on the every roller. This pulls the oil to the bearings as it moves. After this, you should lubricate the springs and hinges lightly so that your system is unlikely to get jammed. Many manufacturers prefer using light oil or silicone lubricant for hinges, chains and springs. However, it should not be applied on plastic parts.

Check the Cables

You should never tamper with high-tension cables which normally lift your door since they have adequate force to kill and maim. However, you can check on their condition so as to know when it’s time to hire an expert. You should also check for any damage and broken strands near the roller bracket’s bottom.

Test Auto-Reverse Safety Features

There are 2 mechanisms involved: mechanical as well as photocell. In order for you to test mechanical features, you should place a brick or even piece of wood onto the ground within the door’s patch. When the garage door coming downwards touches the object, it ought to reverse direction and then go back upwards again.
If the opener is over 20 years old, it might lack this very basic safety features thus it is the right time to get a new opener.

Clear the Tracks

Make sure that the tracks on each side of the garage doors are free from any debris. In addition, if you’re inclined, you can as well use a level so as to check on the plumb. Any important adjustments to the tracks ought to be done by professional garage door technicians.

Groom the Garage Door

Do not ever forget to examine your garage door itself. The wood doors always have to be checked regularly for the water damages and the peeling as well as chipped paint. The steel doors can be having rust spots which require need to be primed, painted and sanded. Wash the garage door on regular basis with slight all-purpose cleaners every time you wash your car.

Remember that the garage door normally makes up about a third of the exterior of the house. As such, it should be kept clean and fresh. Being aware of all the conditions of the opener and garage door is the best way of helping to prevent issues. Together with checking the above specific components monthly, you should look over your garage door system for rust, broken pieces, wear and dirt. In the event that you come across any of the above problems, then contact the services of technicians to handle all the repairs.

If you would rather a professional work on your home or business, check out these great resources for garage door repair in the Ohio area:

Garage door repair Cleveland, Ohio
Garage door repair Cincinnati, Ohio
Garage door repair Columbus, Ohio