Just like you perform maintenance on your car and other mechanical devices, you should sometimes be performing maintenance on your garage door. There are lots of things you can do to maintain your garage door and your garage door opener to ensure that they last a long time and to prevent them from deteriorating and eventually failing. Here are three tips, but there are plenty more out there. Your garage door may also need the care of a professional if it’s already failing, in which case you’ll want to call a repair company that works on garage doors in your area.
But, before it fails completely, try the following tips and tricks.
Pay attention to how your garage door opens.
Pay attention when your garage door is opening and closing. Does it make loud, unusual noises? Does it open and close smoothly, or is it shaky and unstable? If it’s making strange noises or opening in a manner that seems to be unstable, you may need to tighten up some loose screws, figuratively and literally. Check all the springs and cables to make sure they are properly in place and symmetrical. Check the brackets and screws to make sure they are tightened. Check to make sure that the tracks for the garage door are symmetrical and not bent out of shape and that the garage door is in place and aligned with the tracks.
Check the weights in your garage door.
Your garage door may not be balanced well due to the counter-weights. Counter-weights in your garage door help it open and close so that the garage door opener doesn’t have to do all the work mechanically. If the weights are off and your opener is doing most or all of the work, it won’t last as long. You can check the weights by shutting off the opener or disconnecting it and manually pushing the door up slowly until it stays in place on its own without falling back down. If you get more than halfway open and the door is not staying in place on its own, that means that the counterweight is not properly balanced, and you’ll want to have that looked at or repaired.
Examine the garage door’s safety features.
Modern garage doors all have sensors that detect if and when an object is obstructing the way of the garage door while it’s closing. It’s crucial that your garage door sensors function properly as they’re very important safety features. Without them, your garage door is very dangerous and could close not only on your belongings but on your pets or even your children. Test this feature by placing something invaluable, like a brick or block of wood, in the way of the garage door and try closing it. If it closes all the way onto the object, it’s time to get your sensors repaired or replaced.
