Garage Door Prevantative Maintenance Tips
Most of the mechanical devices in your Irvine home will require some type of maintenance in order to prevent malfunctions and costly repairs. Your garage door is no exception. If you want to avoid needing extensive garage door repair services, it’s always wise to undertake a few preventative maintenance steps every so often. Preventative maintenance will help ensure that your garage door is running efficiently and will help you catch problems before they snowball into a major safety hazard. Here are our six top tips for properly maintaining your garage door.
#1. Observe Your Garage Door in Action
The first and easiest step you can take in properly maintaining your garage is allowing it to run while you closely observe its performance. Assess whether the garage door is running smoothly and (relatively) silently. If you notice that it’s jerky when opening or that it makes a scraping sound that isn’t normally there, you may require garage door repair services. Call an Orange county garage door service provider to help you assess the problem and provide a quick but thorough solution. Catching these signs early can help you minimize repair costs and extend the life of your garage door.
#2. Tighten Up All of the Hardware
Over time, the repetitive motion of your garage door opening and closing will naturally loosen the hardware. If one or more of the bolts are beginning to loosen, your entire garage door’s alignment and function can be thrown off as a result. Make hardware tightening a regular part of your maintenance routine in order to prevent bigger problems. Disconnect the power to your garage door, grab a wrench, and tighten each bolt as much as physically possible.
#3. Inspect and Replace the Rollers
Your garage door’s rollers need to be inspected twice a year and replaced approximately every seven years in order to keep your door functioning in top condition. Worn, chipped, or cracked rollers need to be replaced as soon as you notice them. You can call a garage door repair service to do this for you, or you can do it yourself by removing and reinstalling any worn roller brackets. Always be extremely cautious when performing any repair work on a garage door, as its weight makes every repair potentially hazardous.
#4. Replace Your Weatherstripping
Another essential component of your garage door that needs a watchful eye is your weatherstripping. Weatherstripping works hard to keep your garage secure and insulated from uncomfortable weather conditions. If you notice that the weather seal at the bottom of your door is worn, brittle, or cracked, replace it right away in order to keep the weather out of your Irvine home. Weatherstripping can be purchased at any hardware store and cut to size fairly easily. Just slide out the old weatherstripping and install the new one to spruce up your garage door in no time.
#5. Lubricate Moving Parts
Lubricating the moving parts on your garage door will help keep it running smoothly all year long, reducing the risk of operational malfunctions and the need for garage door repair. Garage door lubricant can be purchased at any hardware store. Simply spray it on the chain, overhead springs, and rollers in order to help your garage door run well for as long as possible.
#6. Check the Cables
Your garage door’s high-tension cables are a major safety hazard, and no repairs or maintenance should ever be attempted at home. Keep an eye out for broken strands and damage near the bottom roller bracket, and call an Orange County garage door repair professional right away if you notice anything. These cables lift your garage door, and they have enough force to severely injure or kill someone in the way if they break, so always leave repairs to a trained professional and treat cable repairs with the utmost urgency.
If you want to keep your Irvine home safe and secure year-round, regular preventative garage door maintenance is essential. If you notice any wear and tear or apparent malfunctioning, always be sure to call a garage door repair expert in Orange County. Attempting to repair any garage door problems yourself can be extremely dangerous and even fatal, so it’s always best to leave it up to the experts. All Right Garage Door employs only the most highly-trained technicians so that your repairs are performed quickly, efficiently, and to the highest standard. To receive a free estimate on garage door repair today, give us a call at (714) 726-2225.
