The garage is one of our favorite places and also most important when it comes to the “outside” areas of our home. That’s where we keep our car, have our workshop set up, washing machines and what not. The garage door is probably the largest moving part in your entire house. And it’s also being used many times during the day. And we all know what happens to things that are being overused. If not taken good care of, they will break or malfunction. In this article, we’re going to talk about what you can do to prevent your garage door from breaking, how to maintain it and also throw in a few tips. Without further ado, let’s dive into the topic.
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Look and Listen to your door
I mean, the first thing that you will notice if your garage door is malfunctioning is that it will make weird sounds while opening and closing. Also, it might not even close all the way down or open all the way up, which you’re obviously going to visually notice. If you find something looking or sounding odd, then something probably is not working as it should.
Img source: ltgaragedoors.co.uk
Tightening the moving mechanisms or the entire hardware
Your garage door probably opens dozens of times daily and thousands of times during a year. While this is happening, there is a lot of vibrating and moving which will potentially put things “out of their place”. When your hardware gets loosened, you need to do a step by step examination and tighten everything back up. Otherwise, some more complicated problems might occur. If your garage door spring needs modifying or fixing, and you feel like you are not skilled enough to do it yourself, it’s best to call a garage door spring repair service and let them do the work so that you don’t mess anything up. All the other parts you can tighten by using a socket wrench. Again, if you feel like you don’t know what you’re doing, you should leave it to professionals. Fixing a garage door is sometimes a complicated task and you don’t want to put your health at risk for a couple of bucks.
Test the balance of your garage door
When a garage door is not properly put to balance, the door opener will have to use its maximum potential and work harder in order to open the door. This means that it will probably reach its lifetime limit faster and finally give up. By doing a simple balance check you can prevent all of this.
Img source: progressive-systems.co.uk
Observing and replacing the garage door rollers
The garage door rollers are usually made out of steel or nylon. They need to be “checked” or inspected several times a year to make sure everything is rolling smoothly. Pun intended. The average replacing time for garage door rollers is about seven years, but if you find yourself using your garage door really often, it might be reduced to even three years.
Lubrication is important
If you constantly keep the moving parts lubricated they will have less friction and last much longer. Don’t be afraid to spend a couple of bucks on lube because it will save you a lot of money by preventing the more expensive parts being damaged.
