Tips on How to Extend the Life of Your Garage Door

One of the most neglected apparatus around any home or garage doors. This is hard to understand because garage doors are such an important item around a home or business. Unfortunately, most people who have garages take the doors that secure them much for granted. Home and business owners tend to view their garage doors at items that will last forever without problems but that’s simply not the case. Garage doors have problems and a certain life span just like any other piece of equipment with moving parts. So garage doors need maintenance done on them to help extend their useful life.

What types of maintenance do garage doors need? Here are some things that you can do to help your garage door keep working well long into the future:

Get Routine Maintenance Done On It

The single best way to extend the life of your garage door is to get routine maintenance done it. This maintenance should be done by a qualified garage door professional. It’s also something that should be done on a yearly basis. Garage door professionals know exactly what to do to keep all of the working parts on your garage door in tip-top working condition. Routine garage door maintenance will also typically catch smaller problems before they become much bigger and more expensive repairs.

Keep the Door Clean

Here is a simple step that many people fail to do. Just keeping a garage door clean will help extend its useful life. It will keep dirt off the garage door and help prevent rust and other forms of corrosion that typically break down garage door parts over time. It will also help keep your garage doors looking good. Part of keeping any garage door clean includes keeping vegetation trimmed and kept far away from the garage door. Be careful when cleaning not to get any water in sensitive garage door electronic parts such as openers.

Replace the Opener

One of the most overworked parts on any garage door is its opening mechanism. Garage doors are heavy items that tend to be really hard on the openers that make them go up and down. That’s why these parts usually fail long before the garage door itself is ready to be replaced. So simply getting a new garage door opener when necessary will help extend the life of your garage door well into the future.

Have the Springs Adjusted Periodically

It was mentioned that garage doors are very heavy items that tend to overwork the equipment that raises and lowers them. This would be even worse if not for the spring tension that helps take some weight of garage doors as they open and close. Garage door springs are only effective though if they are adjusted with the proper amount of tension on them. Having a garage door tech come to your home or place of business to adjust your springs yearly will help keep the tension on them at a perfect level. This will make the working parts on your garage door work less hard and help extend your garage door’s lifespan.

Lubricate Where Necessary

Many moving parts on your garage door result with metal moving on metal. This is never a good thing because it causes friction that will wear the two parts that are touching down. Lubricating these areas will help prevent friction and the subsequent parts breakdowns that it causes. Areas that need to be lubricated on a garage door to help it stay working well are any tracks, rollers, gears, or chains that help your garage door open and close.

Check Safety Devices for Proper Operation

How does the proper operation of garage door safety devices help extend the life of your garage door? The answer here is very simple. If your garage door comes down on your car or another object because its safety sensors were not working it could potentially cause your entire garage door to need to be replaced. Safety sensors are also designed not to let your garage door slam shut or open hard when they are being retracted. Not to mention, that proper working garage door sensors keep you, your family, and your guests safe too.

Take Advantage of a Free Garage Door Safety Inspection

Many garage door services such as Quick Garage Door Pros out of Hollywood, Florida are happy to offer their customers free 25-point garage door safety inspections. It’s something that everyone who owns a home or business with a garage door should take advantage of. During these inspections, an experienced garage door tech will look for safety issues with your garage door. They will do such things as check safety shutoff sensors and track alignment. When the garage door tech does this safety inspection, they will also be on the lookout for other potential problems with your garage door too.

Call a Garage Door Tech at the ‘FIRST’ Sign of Any Problems

One of the biggest reasons that people have problems with their garage door operation is that they do not follow up on the warning signs that garage doors hive them before they have a severe breakdown. This includes such things as squealing, grinding or the garage door hitting the floor hard when it closes. Never ignore warning signs such as these because doing so may make what was only a minor garage door problem into a much bigger and more expensive garage door repair.

Be Proactive When It Comes To Taking Care Of Your Garage Door

One of the overall patterns you should be seeing in this article is being proactive with garage door maintenance is the best way to go. Garage doors operate under such stress and strain that’s it’s easy for little problems to become much bigger ones if periodic maintenance is not done on them. So getting routine inspections and maintenance done on your garage doors will help significantly expand the amount of time you can use them before they need to be replaced.

Identifying Garage Door Spring Issues

If you aren’t a specialist, you might not realize how to identify issues with your garage door springs. This is expected. But there are actually quite a few methods to decide whether or not your garage door spring is functioning appropriately. You are going to want to take a few moments of your time to check and inspect the springs sporadically to make sure that if they are not in good shape, they are replaced, so you aren’t left with a garage door that causes damage or doesn’t work. Learn how to identify garage door spring issues by reading this article. We are confident you just might learn something new. 

Professionals providing garage door repairs can be accessed via phone or sometimes through a website, and they are able to come out and inspect the springs for you. They can tell you right away during their inspection if something is wrong. While we don’t encourage DIY work with regard to working on springs, there are things you can do with relative ease, for instance, if you have a spring needing lubrication. Anyway, we will start with the basics. Let’s go over torsion and extension springs so you can at least know the difference and know what you are dealing with!  

Extension Springs and Torsion Springs

You have torsion and extension springs. Springs enable a garage door to be lifted smoothly and with ease as long as they are functional, regardless of how much your garage door might weigh. Yes, the springs are small but they are able to support a lot of weight. They offer assistance with torsion.

Torsion springs are the springs you might see on the wall over a garage door and they are used for big, heavy doors because these springs typically do have a longer lifespan and they are known for how resilient and sturdy they happen to be. On the other hand, extension springs are commonly seen with one-piece garage doors, usually overhead, and they are very useful as it relates to contraction and expansion. Torsion springs, if taken care of properly, are going to last longer than extension springs do, generally speaking.  

So how are you supposed to recognize if the springs are problematical? How can you tell it’s time to hire an expert to replace them? Let’s assume your garage door refuses to budge. It won’t open. While you might assume the opener is the culprit causing the problem, it could be something else – the springs. Does your garage door open at an angle? Check for issues like cables that are dangling down. These are connected to springs, which might indicate a damaged torsion spring. If this is what you have found, call a professional. 

Now let’s say it’s not the entire door system, but just part of the door that is not working properly. In this case, you still are going to want to take a look at the springs because when the garage door doesn’t function the way it is supposed to, other components are strained and damage can occur, especially with the springs. Check for wear and tear. When it comes to springs, check for coil separation and look at the length. If something seems off, there might be an issue. 

Here is another way to determine if the springs are working appropriately – disable the automatic opener. This isn’t as difficult as you might think. Just close the garage door and disable the opener. Them, lift the garage door. Yes, lift it with your hands. Do you notice that it gets stuck? Or does it open just fine? If it opens without any issue, you might not have to worry about the springs. But if you are exerting more force than seems necessary to lift the garage door, the problem could absolutely be the springs.

You can also try a safety test on the garage door. This is easy to do. You just need to open the garage door, then use the button (this might be on the wall or you might need your automatic opener) to close the door. Now it’s time to test the door. You can place an object in its path. Just use something that you don’t mind potentially getting damaged, like a heavy stick or old broom. Does the object force the door to go into reverse? This is what it is supposed to do because it is a security feature. If the door does not immediately stop when it gets close to the object you put in its way, you have a problematic safety mechanism and potentially broken springs. Please be cautious if you do this test.

Damaged Springs Are a Big Problem

If you regularly look at your springs, you might notice problems faster, like a gap in the spring, or you might be more inclined to notice that a noise doesn’t sound right. Just make sure to hire an expert for assistance. 

You want your springs to last as long as possible, of course. Lubricating them can certainly help. If you notice an issue regarding how your garage door is working, and you believe the springs could be at fault, call an expert. Make sure they are insured and licensed, so you are covered.

Now that you realize there are numerous ways to decide if a garage door spring is functioning the way that it should be, make sure YOURS are working how they are supposed to.  Inspect the garage door springs regularly, for your own protection and to ensure your door lasts as long as it can. We hope this information has helped you to identify garage door spring issues. If you detect a problem with the garage door springs, get on the phone with the experts at Quick Garage Door Pros located in Hollywood, FL. 

You can call at any time because we offer 24/7 emergency services so you are covered during an unanticipated or dangerous scenario. Many garage door experts offer this service.