Automatic Garage Door Maintenance: 5 Mistakes You May Be Making

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It's so easy to ignore your garage door until something goes wrong. However, to keep your automatic garage door in good condition, you need to provide routine maintenance that can prevent problems. Check out these five common mistakes you may be making with your automatic garage door maintenance.

Neglecting Routine Tests

If you park in the garage, you may open and close your garage every day, but that doesn't mean you're paying attention. As long as the door opens, you're set. However, even if your garage door appears to be in perfect working condition, you should perform routine tests on it about once a year. This allows you to spot any concerns or problems you may not have noticed. During the test, open and close the door a few times like normal, but as you do so, pay attention. Look for any uneven movement, shaking or strange sounds, which indicate something is wrong.

Using the Wrong Lubrication

One of the most basic steps in automatic garage door maintenance is to keep the moving parts lubricated, so if you do that, great. However, if you notice that the moving parts are collecting gunk or that they not moving well, you may be using the wrong lubrication. The best kind of lubrication is aerosol spray, not grease. Aerosol spray is light, non-sticky, and it can penetrate further than grease. Grease is a mess, and it only makes things worse because it collects dust and debris, which makes the moving parts sluggish.

Attempting to Replace Springs Yourself

There are two types of garage door springs: torsion and extension. Like any part of the garage door, these springs can become worn, broken or loose. However, you should not attempt to replace them yourself. There's a lot of pressure behind those springs. Safety cables are designed to prevent extension springs from flying off when you try to remove them, and a safety bar prevents torsion springs from doing the same. However, if the cable or bar fails or is broken, you could cause serious injury or even death. Plus, to remove extension springs, you have to remove the cables, which automatically puts you at risk.

Failing to Routinely Test the Sensors

One piece of garage door maintenance that is commonly ignored is sensor testing. The sensors prevent the door from closing if something is in the way. So if a bike is lying in the path, the sensors sense it, and the door opens before it crushes the bike. When you perform your routine test, try testing the sensors to make sure they are still adjusted correctly. The goal is to get the door to re-open the moment it touches something. If you set the sensor so it's too sensitive, however, it may cause the door to reopen if it senses the smallest item, such as a leaf in the track.

Forgetting to Clean the Tracks and Rollers

If you spot a bit of dirt on the front of your garage door, you probably quickly wash it to keep your home looking beautiful. However, when you do clean your garage door, do you forget to check the tracks and rollers? Leaves, sticks and other types of debris can collect in the tracks. If your door doesn't open or close smoothly or if one side seems to move faster than the other, check the tracks first to see if there's something caught in there. If there is, clean it, and see if that corrects the problem.

Garage door maintenance should be done on a regular basis, and not just when something goes wrong. Knowing these five common mistakes can help you take better care of your garage door, so it last longer. If you would like more information about garage door maintenance, or to have your door professionally serviced, contact a garage door technician in your area today. For more information, consider a site like http://www.doordoctorinc.com/.

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11 December 2015

increasing security in your garage

How secure your garage door is depends on several elements. How old is the garage door? How well is it maintained? Are there broken windows? Do you have a lock on the door? These are just a few things to check for to find out just how secure your garage door is. Chances are, the items that you store in your garage are of great value, and if they are stolen, they could be hard to replace. This blog is all about increasing garage security. You will learn when to replace the garage door, find out about the different kinds of locks and tips for making the garage as secure as it possibly can be.