How to Avoid Garage Door Repairs Before They’re Needed

Garage door failures are often preventable with a few simple habits. Routine maintenance, mindful use, and paying attention to changes in noise or function can help homeowners avoid costly repairs and keep their garage doors operating reliably.

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It’s easy to forget how vital your garage door is. Until it breaks.

Our team recently repaired one of our customers’ garage doors. She had become so accustomed to coming in and out through her garage that she didn’t even carry house keys with her anymore—when her garage door failed, she was completely locked out of her house.

Even if you don’t rely on your garage door as your primary entry and exit from your home, a broken door is still a security hazard, especially if it’s broken in the open position. With summer’s eternal thunderstorms kicking off early in Middle Georgia this year, having a door that properly opens and closes is more important than ever for keeping your possessions secure and dry.

While we’re happy to help our neighbors in Middle Georgia when their garage doors are out of order, we’re even happier when we can help them avoid needing to call for a repair in the first place.

In this article, we’re sharing some best practices that will help you keep your garage door working properly and hopefully reduce the likelihood of it failing at your home or business.

Tip #1: Practice Preventive Maintenance

In an earlier article, we gave you some easy, common-sense steps you can take a couple of times a year to keep your door maintained:

• Keep moving parts lightly lubricated
• Clean your door’s surfaces regularly
• Perform a quick visual inspection
• Order occasional professional maintenance

Following these tips – especially the last one – will dramatically improve the longevity of your door and reduce the risk of suffering a breakdown. You can read more details about our maintenance tips in our article “4 Tips For Maintaining Your Garage Door in Middle GA’s Climate.”

Tip #2: Be Careful With Your Door

A lot of the repairs we do become necessary just because someone wasn’t paying attention:

• Someone backs a car out of the garage without opening the door first
• A lawnmower or weed trimmer throws a rock through a door lite (window)
• The golfer in the house misses the practice net and drives a Titleist into the door
• The grillmaster ignores the safety rules and tries to light a gas grill under an open garage door

The list could go on for pages and pages, but you get the idea. While you can never protect yourself against every possible accident, you can take a few steps to reduce the risks:

• Get all of the drivers in your household into the habit of opening the garage door before getting into the car and always double-checking before dropping it into reverse. A sign on the front wall of the garage can help remind more absent-minded drivers to “check their six” before leaving.
• When mowing or trimming, always try to work in the right direction. Around your garage door, that means turning the mower so that the grass chute is pointed away from the door and making sure that the debris from your string trimmer is being thrown away from the house.
• Outdoor sports don’t belong in the garage. If you must use your garage to practice your golf swing, slap shot, or batting, make sure that you have protective netting that surrounds you and makes it impossible for an errant ball or puck to escape.
• Never, ever start a fire inside the garage. It’s bad enough that a flare-up could scorch and ruin the finish on your garage door, but one minor slip is all that’s needed to reduce your garage and everything in it to a pile of ash.

Tip #3: Listen to Your Garage Door Opener

You can learn a lot about how well your garage door is working just by listening to your garage door operator or garage door opener. If something is affecting the operation of your door, your opener will likely let you know about it.

If your garage door operator suddenly sounds different, then something is causing it to sound different:

• Something on your garage door has broken or gone out of alignment, making the opener work harder to lift and lower the door.
• Something is going wrong with your garage door opener, causing gears to grind, motors to bog down, or other strange noises.
• Something is wrong with the electrical supply to your opener, causing it to run at a lower or fluctuating speed.

If you start hearing strange sounds from your garage door opener, don’t assume they’ll resolve themselves over time. If something is causing damage to your door, each open-and-close cycle puts additional strain on it and potentially drives you closer and closer to complete failure. Call your trusted garage door repair team right away and let them stop the noise before it becomes a major problem.

Call Overhead Door Company of Macon-Warner Robins at 478-474-4347 to schedule a showroom visit!

 Areas We Serve

No matter where you live in Middle Georgia, Overhead Door Company of Macon-Warner Robins is ready to help provide you with the garage door solutions you need!

• Macon
• Warner Robins
• Perry
• Bonaire
• Kathleen
• Forsyth
• Barnesville
• Milledgeville
• Jeffersonville
• Fort Valley
• Byron
• Unadilla
• Hawkinsville
• Montezuma
• Cochran
• Butler
• Reynolds
• Thomaston
• Roberta

 

 

 

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