Your garage door is a dependable part of your everyday life, and it typically raises and lowers approximately 1,000 times per year. With the correct care your garage door can last for decades despite this intense use; however, you could easily overlook potential problems at your peril. Small problems become large ones if they aren’t taken care of promptly. Practicing routine maintenance can extend the life of your garage door and help keep your home safe and secure.
The team at Eden Roc have put together this helpful guide on garage door maintenance!
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO GET YOUR GARAGE DOOR SERVICED?
Modern garage doors with remote controlled electric openers are a great convenience when operating properly but can be frustrating and very costly if not maintained. Garage doors and their electric openers are the largest mechanical device that you will find in a household, like any mechanical appliance, periodic servicing is required. Without regular maintenance services (once every 1 – 2 years) the garage door set up and its various moving parts will deteriorate until it eventually breaks down.
Depending on how the garage door set up breaks down, you can be left stranded as your car is trapped inside your garage or your garage door may end up stuck open. In the worst circumstances, it can be very dangerous to anyone who may be in garage door opening as the garage door (which can be up to 120kg for a typical residential garage door) come crashing down.
For some perspective: A typical double garage door made from steel weighs over 100kgs. A modern garage door motor can exert a force of up to 1000 newton meters (this is equivalent to the amount of torque produced by a 2015 Mercedes-Benz S65 AMG: one of Mercedes’ most powerful cars – for those who aren’t car people, it’s A LOT). This combination can have lethal consequences for a person, pet or some other property that happens to get trapped under a closing door.
HOW OFTEN SHOULD YOU SERVICE YOUR GARAGE DOOR?
We definitely recommend you service your garage door in the recommended 1 – 2 year time frame as Perth’s coastal air encourages the fast build-up of rust.
In areas where the garage door is directly exposed to salty air (i.e on the coast) or industrial areas with higher levels of pollution in the air, servicing should occur more frequently.
MUST THE SERVICE BE DONE BY A TECHNICIAN? CAN YOU SERVICE THE DOOR YOURSELF?
As the homeowner or user of the garage door, there are a number of things you can do with basic tools to maintain the health of your garage door. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to do everything required in a full service; the most dangerous task being the tensioning of the garage door springs.
The spring is a crucially important piece of the garage door set up and if not tensioned correctly it can burn out the garage door opener motor – costing hundreds to replace. The spring is wound at such a high tension, that it carries a lot of tensioned elastic force within it. If that force were to all be released at once (which is very easy to accidentally do when tensioning the spring), it can cause serious damage to the person attempting to reset the tension (there are instances of people losing fingers and eyes to garage door torsion springs). As such, when it comes to a few of the more dangerous tasks involved in a garage door service, they must be done by a qualified technician.
WHEN MUST YOU GET YOUR GARAGE DOOR SERVICED?
While we strongly recommend that garage doors are serviced every 1 – 2 years, we are well aware of the fact that most homeowners do not do this. So, here are the signs and symptoms of a door in desperate need of service or repair:
Dry and rusted springs and cables.
Garage door springs enable a door to operate with ease and are regarded as the single most important component of the garage door. If either the springs or the cables are dry and rusted there is a danger of them breaking. If they break the garage door will become inoperable, jammed, or lopsided. A quick visual inspection of your garage door springs and cables can save you a lot of time and money.
Loud, squeaking and scratching noises when opening/closing.
A garage door which is making a lot of noise could be as a result of no (or incorrect) lubricant, debris in the tracks, or as a result of an ‘under-tensioned’ garage door spring. You can apply the lubricant and clean the tracks yourself, but the tensioning of the spring must be done by a qualified garage door technician given the danger discussed above.
The motor chain or belt move during operation, but the garage door stays still and does not close/open.
This is a frequent issue that occurs in many garage door openers. It is a result of a broken drive gear. The drive gear assembly drives the chain or belt and is one of the most common part to break as a result of general wear and tear. Drive gears can be easily be replaced by a qualified service technician.
Original article by Eden Roc Adapted from https://www.edenrocgaragedoors.com.au/servicing-repairs/
