A garage is a vital part of any household. It not only performs the important function of keeping your car safe, but it also provides you with a space to keep many of your important items and maybe even have a garage workshop. So, maintaining a garage is a must for any household.
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When it comes to garage maintenance, the thing that automatically comes to our mind is the garage door. The lion’s share of your garage maintenance activity is required on this apparatus.
This actually makes sense as garage doors are a very sensitive machine. Garage doors contain multiple parts that work together to lift the door or shut it down. Failure in any part means the door will not perform its action correctly.
That’s why the garage door needs to be maintained regularly. It should be suggested first that being such a sensitive machine, the repair works are mostly of technical nature, which is why you may want to leave the repair works to the professionals.
That being said, there are some nifty tricks that you can follow to prevent yourself from needing the repair in the first place. In this article, we will discuss how you can perform garage door repair.
Audio-visual senses
The best way to detect any problem is to look and listen to an apparatus that is misbehaving. Just like any other apparatus, many of the problems in garage doors can be figured out by just looking and listening.
The obvious sign that there’s something wrong with your door is when it gets stuck in the middle while shifting positions. If this happens, you need to immediately terminate the garage door operation and call an electric garage door repair service.
Auditory signs could be critical too. If you hear any unusual sounds while using the door or a sudden loud sound and your door gets stuck afterward, you may have a problem in the springs. You are to cease garage door operations immediately and call for professional help.
Proper organization
You can tell from experience garages can be messy to maintain, which is why a garage needs proper organization with proper space management and planning.
Garages are mainly messy because they are used as storage for various tools and other items. So you want to organize the items that you keep in your garage. It may seem unrelated to garage door maintenance at first, but the organization of the garage allows you to keep the garage door and its components safe from harm.
Tightening the parts
The garage door is a moving apparatus. It is composed of various parts that work together to move or lift the garage door. Whenever a garage door is used, all of these parts are employed.
So it is natural that over time, nuts and other parts will start to become loose from constant use. Every once in a while, use a wrench to tighten the screws. Tighten other parts that are susceptible to falling out. This preventive measure will allow you to increase the longevity of your garage door.
The parts that are susceptible to vibration and movement-related problems are the roller brackets. Tighten these up along with the bolts regularly.
Balancing the door
Garage door balance is an important thing to maintain. This is a phenomenon where the door is not properly balanced against the counterweight.
An unbalanced door will give you a lot of problems, especially when opening the garage door. This will make the job harder for the door opener. As a result, the longevity of the door opener will be reduced.
The best way to check for an unbalanced door is to first disconnect the opener using a disconnecting cord. That will allow you to move the garage door manually. Lift the garage door to up to half of its height. Check to see if the door is staying put. If it does not stay put in that position, you will have to assume that it’s unbalanced. This problem is mainly attributed to the springs of the garage door, and it is best to allow professionals to handle this kind of situation. Otherwise, you might deteriorate the situation further.
Maintaining the rollers
The garage door rollers are moving wheel-like structures that are joined with the doors and move on a specific bracket to roll the door up or down.
Such rigorous movement every day means this part will wear off very quickly. The best practice is to replace your roller every seven years. A more frequent replacement may be needed, depending on the use.
You need to check at least twice a year to see the condition of the roller. If it is damaged, immediately replace it. Otherwise, it might damage your garage door body.
Taking care of the weather-stripping
Weather strippers on a garage door are a protective line of rubber or other materials at the bottom of your garage door bracket, where the door finally rests. It works as a protective layer to keep the outside elements out of your house.
Via constant friction or weather, these strips could eventually wear off. The best practice is to take off the damaged strips and replace them with new ones. You can buy these weather strips at nearby hardware shops. They are easily replaceable too. Properly align the door and the strippers to get the maximum effect.
Apply lubrication
A mechanical thing like the garage door, with multiple moving parts, faces a lot of friction every day. As a result, various parts of the garage door may wear out earlier than predicted. Weather also plays a part here.
To prevent this from happening, apply lubrication to the parts where it’s most needed. Especially, the metal parts need lubrication once in a while. You can lubricate the parts every 6 months or once a year, depending on your needs.
Garage doors are easily maintained if you follow these steps. When it comes to mechanical parts, you have to learn to trust your instincts and sensory information- how it looks and feels. Many of the delicate repair jobs should be left to the professionals, but you will have to do all the day-to-day maintenance.
