Tips to extend the life of your garage door

Life extension applies to more than just people; inanimate objects can enjoy longer life, too. This includes household appliances like toasters, dishwashers, stoves, and even garage doors! Contrary to many opinions, you don’t have to fully replace your garage door every so often; you can maintain it and therefor extend the life of your garage door with minimal effort and cost. Read on and see what our Chamblee Garage Door Repair techs recommend; we promise it will be worth your while! There are many factors involved when the life of your garage door is taken into account; how old is your garage door? How often do you and others use it? Have you applied any maintenance to it in the past? What about previous owners or occupants of the property; how did they treat the garage door. Then there’s weather; here in Chamblee, Georgia, we have hot and humid summers and pretty cold winters; was your garage door treated with weather sealant or ever painted?

Let’s crunch some numbers

Often, ideas become clearer when some actual figures are examined so let’s do that with garage doors. On “average” a garage door will last roughly 30 years with regular use. Don’t forget now; your garage door consists of more than just the metal frame and the panels or sections; it’s the entire ensemble consisting of opener unit, springs, pulleys, cables, rollers, hinges, safety sensors, tracks and more. Let’s take your springs for instance. There are two main types of springs; torsion and extension. Each has their own life cycles. Your torsion springs are the newer, more popular spring types and can last for about 20,000 cycles. The less expensive and older springs are the extension ones and they last about half of that. A spring cycle is counted as one garage door opening and one closing so if you used your garage door twice a day, your torsion springs would last roughly 27 years with minimal maintenance. Of course you would adjust those figures to better match your own garage door usage and spring types.

Don’t let the word “maintain” bother you!

Ugh! Maintain conjures images of hard work, time consumption and rolled up sleeves; definitely not for everyone; or is it? The kind of up-keep we are talking about is nothing like that! In fact, our maintenance tips require little time, very little money and no bother at all! Consider the alternative; no up keep combined with basic wear and tear can force you to replace instead of service and THAT gets time consuming and expensive. The problems with poor or no maintenance goes way beyond your garage door replacement costs. A poorly maintained garage door will show it in appearance as well as performance. Not only will it be less safe, but it can actually affect your property values. This is bad news if you are trying to sell or rent your home or business. Property associations can also fine and even lien real estate that is not kept up. All in all, it makes sense to apply basic maintenance to keep your garage door looking and working great!

Why maintain at all?

Good question; why maintain a wall made of wood or metal at all? Isn’t it already tough enough to withstand heat, cold, wind, rain and snow? Yes and no! Even the best built garage doors are durable and can last for many years. The maintenance we recommend is for upkeep only. Remember, even the mighty pyramids are showing their age and they are made of millions of tons of solid stone!

Clean up!

Let’s start by cleaning up. Wipe down your garage door; inside and out. Remove spider webs, mud, paint, food spills, grease and dirt wherever and whenever found. Your garage door will look better, and the absence of spider webs will keep your safety sensors working better and more reliably. Not only are spiders and other bugs not welcome inside your garage but they can get inside your home via the inside garage door. Be sure to clear the path around your photo electric safety eyes. Something as innocent as a garden rake or tennis shoe can cause your opener unit to work erratically. You may even think you have opener problems or spring issues when in fact, you don’t! This is because your sensors will send your garage door back up if something gets in the way of the transmitted beam.

Tracks need to be kept clean and free of debris. A tiny bit of dried chewing gum or clogged dirt can stop the rollers from moving inside your tracks. This is enough to stop the up or down movement of your garage door. It’s wise to give your garage door rollers a checkup now and then. Use an old toothbrush and clear out any debris that may have accumulated inside them, including mud, spider webs, gum, twigs, leaves, mud and rocks.

Wash with soap!

Remember your Mother telling you that when you were a kid? Well, it applies to garage doors, too! Most debris that clings to metal garage doors can be easily cleaned off with a mild detergent; nothing fancy; just a periodic wipe down is all that is needed. If your garage door is made of wood, just apply paint touch ups as needed and wipe down with a cloth beforehand. Use a soft cloth for wiping safety sensors and treat your lenses carefully so that they don’t scratch or break. Think of them as valuable and sensitive as camera lenses and you’ll be fine.

Lubrication

Keeping your garage door lubricated is important. Just a light spritz every so often is great for your garage door springs, hinges and rollers. No need to go overboard; in fact, apply sparingly. Too much lubrication is pointless and just leaves you with a mess to clean up. Contrary to popular opinion; don’t use WD-40. Use instead a silicon spray and use sparingly. These tips when used together are simple, easy to implement and not expensive. Try them out and see for yourself!