Dos and Don’ts of Maintaining Your Garage Door

General Maintenance on Garage Doors

There are lots of things you can do to maintain your garage doors so they give you the longest ROI and peace of mind for the future. Below we have compromised a list of best practices when performing at home maintenance on your garage doors. 

• Lubricating – Using a garage door lubricant to spray all the mechanical parts of your garage doors can help alleviate noise, sticking parts and seized components. We recommend spraying your hinges, roller carriers, springs, and bottom brackets (the brackets at the bottom of your door that are attached to cables that help move the door up and down). 
• Adjusting photo eyes – Adjusting and cleaning your garage door sensors and ensuring nothing is in the way of their operation can help prevent unwanted issues. 
• Replacing your garage door opener battery
• Cleaning the door face 
• Ensuring no pooling of water is occurring where the door is sitting (make sure the garage floor is sloping away from the garage door for proper drainage.
• Tightening any noticeably loose bolts 

Don’ts of Garage Door Maintenance

There are certain things that are better left up to the professionals. You will often hear that garage door springs can be extremely dangerous and that can be very true if you do not have the right expertise. Replacing garage door springs is something we suggest you do not do on your own and hire a professional to take care of as they have the knowledge and experience to fix something that can be quite dangerous for the average person and replace it in a safe manner. 

Replacing cables is second to garage door springs as they work together to operate your door. From an initial glance they may look harmless but if you look carefully, you will see that they hold all the power of the springs on them. This is where we suggest hiring professional help, an experienced garage door technician will be able to get them both replaced for you quickly, safely, and without any risk or harm to you the home owner.

How To Identify Critical Damage to Your Door. (Broken Spring, Frayed Cable)

How To Identify Frayed or Snapped Garage Door Cables

 If the cables that attach from the spring system to the bottom bracket on either side of your garage door are frayed or have worn strips hanging loose, your cables are in danger of breaking. This could cause serious injury or property damage. Have the cables inspected immediately by one of our garage door professionals.

Identifying Broken Springs

Eventually, all springs will wear out and break, even high-quality steel springs like the ones used by Clopay. If you have an older garage door, have one of our garage door professionals inspect and replace the springs if necessary. If your garage door has two springs, replace both at the same time, even if one is not broken. This will prevent any damage caused if the second spring breaks, and also keep your door working efficiently.