Every once in a while, garage doors need servicing to ensure that they run properly. You rely on garage doors day in and day out to open and close at the push of a button. The average garage door opens and closes 1,500 times per year. With that amount of activity, you need to maintain them to ensure that they continue to work.
How Often to Have Your Garage Door Professionally Serviced
On average, you should have your garage door service professionally serviced once per year. Only once per year provided no other problems arise. Having your garage door serviced will extend its lifetime. Professionals will take care of the essentials, such as:
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Tightening bolts
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Lubricating the moving parts
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Adjusting the spring tension
You can perform simple maintenance on your garage door, but you should leave the essentials to the pros. For example, never mess with the spring tension.
Since garage doors often weigh anywhere from 130 to 450 pounds, it requires a spring that can handle that much tension, which can be dangerous to work on in unknowledgeable hands.
Garage Door Service
Cherry Hill Garage Door can install and repair garage doors for all your commercial, industrial, or business properties – warehouses, schools, showrooms, municipal buildings, car dealerships, storage facilities – wherever you may find yourself in need of a trained garage door expert, we can provide assistance, anywhere in the Cherry Hill, NJ area.
We offer a full range of styles and brands, so we can get the garage door that is perfect for your needs, in both design and performance. We offer a wide variety of sizes, options, and custom configurations to ensure that we meet the specific requirements for your business.
Monthly Checkups
Along with having a professional service your garage door service, you should inspect the door once a month or seasonally if monthly isn’t possible. This ensures that it remains in top condition. The things to check on your garage door include:
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Inspect the rollers and grease them
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Inspect the metal tracks for dents and bumps
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Check to see that the tracks align
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Look at the cables
Regular checkups can prevent problems from compounding into more expensive ones. It can cost anywhere from $147 to $341 per servicing, so you want to take proactive measures to stop expensive costs from happening.
To give you an example, your technician may identify a spring about to break and replace it before it breaks. Springs breaking pose a grave danger to anyone in the vicinity, and it can further damage your garage door service.
Garage door springs will last about 10,000 cycles. At an average of 1,500 openings and closings of the garage door per year, that means that you can expect to replace a spring at a little under the seven-year mark.
You may want to have it inspected sooner to ensure that it won’t break without warning. You don’t want this break while it’s in use because it can damage the door and maim or kill someone nearby.
How a Technician Services Your Garage Door
The experts at Cherry Hill Garage Door in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, will enter the garage with a checklist. They will use the checklist to examine the potential issues with garage doors.
Usually, the things that we look at include the springs, the rollers, the cables, the garage door opener and the door sections and panels. With springs, the torsion springs must get examined occasionally. For the cables, you have to check to see that you don’t have signs of fraying.
On the rollers, the technician will look for signs of bending or possible breakages.
Why You Should Have Your Garage Door Serviced
You should have your garage door serviced because it extends the lifetime of the garage door. Automatic garage door openers will last anywhere from 10 to 15 years. This depends on how well you maintain it and how much you use it.
The lifespan of the garage door depends on other factors too like the construction quality, the materials used and the local climate conditions. Steel or aluminum will usually last 20 years. Wooden garage door service will last a long time provided you maintain them properly. In cold and wet climate, they may not last as long.
What to Keep in Mind with Lubrication
When you go to lubricate your door, use non-silicone based garage door lubricants. You can use WD-40, but don’t use lubricants that will gum on the rails because this can cause issues with the garage door service.
Lubricate the springs and the hinges several times per year to keep them in working condition. The winter especially calls for lubrication because the air dries out, and it can cause issues with opening and closing.
Expert’s Tip: In general, you want to avoid greasing the tracks. Instead, you should grease the moving parts of the garage door. Don’t over lubricate the door, however, and wipe away any excess grease.
Why Does My Garage Door Stick?
Misalignment of the garage door is the most common culprit of a sticking garage door. When the garage door sticks, it will tend to shimmy on the tracks. In some cases, the door gets stuck.
Dirt, debris and dust on the tracks can also cause the garage door to stick. Cleaning these areas will ensure that the door lasts as long as it should.
Don’t ignore a misaligned garage door because it puts unnecessary tension on the door. Never try to fix it yourself because you need an expert. Garage doors can weigh up to 450 pounds, and you don’t want this coming down on you without warning.
If you’d like to have your garage door serviced, call Cherry Hill Garage Door. We will dispatch a technician to service your garage door. Our technicians have seen almost every kind of situation that can arise. With proper maintenance, you can avoid having serious issues that will cost you more.