Garage doors are the most commonly used part of your entire home, which is being frequently used for a rough estimate of around a thousand times per year.
This being said, it is certainly not a surprise why every once in a while, we get to experience having our overhead garage doors break down on us.
If you want to minimize your number of breakdowns per year and prolong the life of your garage door’s parts, then you should definitely do regular preventive maintenance activities.
Maintenance is important in order to ensure consistency and maximize the performance of your overhead garage doors.
It is also done in order to reduce the need of having to replace your garage door’s parts multiple times a year.
With simple preventive maintenance activities, even you can do something for your garage doors.
But what exactly is done during maintenance activities?
How can you help in performing preventive maintenance on your overhead garage doors if you do not know what should be done during maintenance?
Well, to help you out, here is a garage door preventive maintenance checklist you can refer to when doing maintenance on your overhead garage doors.
Check for tell-tale signs of damages
The first thing you should do for your garage doors is to check for any signs or indicators that would suggest that something may be going wrong with your garage doors.
To help you out, you can start by asking these questions for yourself:
- Is my garage door making any unnecessary noises?
- Is it not moving smoothly and without any problems?
- Are my garage doors unbalanced or asymmetrical when opened?
- Can I hear clattering sounds when I open my overhead garage doors?
If your answer to these questions is yes, then there should be something wrong with your overhead garage doors.
Try to find and identify whatever it is that could possibly be causing the problem and make sure to have it fixed or repaired right away.
Check for loose hardware
Your overhead garage doors move a lot almost every day and as such, it can cause your screws, nuts, and bolts to loosen their hold on your garage door’s different components.
When this happens, you cannot leave it that way as it could be dangerous especially if that said part or component suddenly falls down on you.
When doing preventive maintenance activities, make sure that you include checking for loose hardware and if there is, make sure to tighten them accordingly.
Doing these will make sure that you remain safe whilst at the same time ensuring that your garage doors keep functioning as it should.
Check your garage door’s balance
Overhead garage doors are designed to be symmetrical and balanced as they are lifted open.
This is so that weight and load are evenly distributed to its different parts and components all throughout.
If you find out that your garage door is unbalanced, this could mean that something may be wrong with your spring, cable, and others.
In order to check your door’s balance and symmetry, all you need to do is disconnect your overhead garage door openers from your garage doors.
After doing so, manually open your garage doors halfway and if it holds itself perfectly just fine, then you should be good to go.
Check for damages
During preventive maintenance activities, you should also consider checking your garage door’s different parts for any physical damages and the like.
Leaving these damaged parts on your garage doors can after all affect your overhead garage door’s overall performance.
Start with the most commonly damaged components and parts like your rollers, tracks, rubber seals, cables, and springs.
Dealing with them can vary significantly.
For your garage door rollers, see if there are cracks, chips, deformation, or any signs of damages on its surface.
Garage door rollers should be checked at least twice a year and replaced once every seven years if everything goes well.
For your garage tracks, check for misalignment, deformation, dents, and other kinds of damages.
Also, make sure to clean your garage door tracks as this is where most of the dirt and grime hides.
Make sure that it is free of dirt and debris once you are done with it.
Next, we have your garage door’s weather-stripping seals or your rubber seals.
For rubber seals, check if they are brittle, worn-out, torn, or damaged in any way possible and if they are, make sure to have them replaced right away.
Your weather-stripping seals are very important after all in keeping the inside of your garage doors protected from all kinds of unwanted factors such as rain, heat, cold, etc.
Lastly, if your cables and springs are damaged, broken, or worn-out in any way, make sure to contact your local garage door repair company to help you out in dealing with it.
These components can be really dangerous and tricky to deal with so it is better to leave them with trained professionals that are used to the job.
Lubricating your garage door’s moving parts
One of the things that should never be left out when doing preventive maintenance is lubricating your garage door.
Lubrication helps a lot especially in prolonging the lifespan of your garage door’s parts, allowing it to last longer than it normally should.
Aside from that, they are really good at dealing with rusted surfaces as they can loosen rust and even prevent moisture from forming on the surface of the different parts of your garage doors.
For the best grease or lubricant to use for your overhead garage doors, consult with your local garage door repair company, or conduct your own research online.
Check your garage door’s safety features
Another thing you should definitely keep in mind when maintaining your garage doors is to check their different functions and features, most especially your garage door’s safety features.
These safety features are there after all for a reason — they are to prevent us from accidentally injuring ourselves and the like.
There are a lot of different ways in which you can do this, so for this task, use your creativity.
Just make sure you know what the safety features your garage doors come with and you should do just fine.
Conclusion
Garage doors are extremely important parts of our daily lives, and as such, it is only right that you make sure that they are in the best possible condition that they can be.
By performing these maintenance activities, you are able to prolong your garage door’s individual components.
However, preventive maintenance is not the only thing you should provide your garage doors with.
It also needs to be tuned up properly and such.
This being said, if you are looking for a garage door repair company in Edmonton that can provide you with such services, then you do not need to look further as Overhead Door Pros is here for you.
Overhead Door Pros is a garage door repair company in the area that provides 24/7 garage door repair services to all existing residents in Edmonton.
Being available 24/7, also means that we are able to assist you with your garage door related needs and services even during the oddest hours of the day so you definitely have nothing to worry about.
Aside from the garage door maintenance services, we also offer garage door installations and emergency garage door repair services.
Here at Overhead Door Pros, we aim to provide the best quality services that your garage doors deserve.
Contact us now for more inquiries regarding our rates and offers.
