Garage Door Springs Need Professional | Cherry Hill Garage Door

It may not be often but it may happen during the life of your home, whether it is new or being remodeled, that you need to have your garage door looked at by a professional repairman.

However, before running off and calling your professional garage door repairman to take a second and see if you can repair the problem yourself.

Preventative Measures

There are certain things you can do to keep your garage door working well by a few preventative measures followed.

First, from time to time make sure the motor and joints on the doors are oiled well and the rollers are running on the tracks as they are built to.
Secondly, if you have children and toys that they use make sure that you put signs around that warn everyone in the family not to leave things in the way of the garage door so that when a member of the family drives into the garage they are not having to stop and take things out of the way of the car that is being driven into the garage. (I know it is easier said than done).
Thirdly, if you are the way to work and you hear unexpected noises coming from the motor that operates your garage door take a moment to see if you can fix it yourself or at least pinpoint what is going on.
I know this may sound odd but at least you will know that your DIY skills are getting better and you can at least tell the repairman when they show up that you “checked that already.”
Fourthly, if you see lots of animals, birds, insects, flying or running in and out of the garage make sure they are not building nests in the garage door motor.
It is easy for small animals like field mice, squirrels, wasps, crickets, swallows, sparrows, and smaller birds to begin building nests and sorts in your garage motor or parts of the garage door that ultimately will cause problems later. Those are some things that you can do to inspect and carry out preventive measures so that the wors doesn’t happen.

Possible Solutions to Common Problems

So you’ve been keeping your preventive measures going and had pretty good luck and nothing has happened to your garage door, but the kids were playing ball outside and accidentally broke the glass in the garage door.

You can do one of two things. You can kick in DIY mode and put it down on your list to do on a weekend. Replacing a garage door window may not cause you much difficulty, but to find the perfect kind of glass may be a challenge.

If you decide to go back to the original glass locate the garage door manufacturer labeled on the door and give them a call with the model number of the garage door and you can get a replacement for the garage door glass replacement.

Your second option would be to just call in a repairman and let them do the repairs. Lastly, tell the kids to play ball in the backyard next time or use a nerf ball rather than a hardball which is better on the glass.

Garage Door Jam

When a garage door jams it could mean two things. First, the door is off its tracks. Secondly, the bearings that are built into the wheels that keep the garage door on its tracks need oiling or they are damaged.

WD-40 or a simple silicon spray may do the trick, especially if you live where there is a lot of salt in the air or it is a very dry climate and the dry air has dried out the lubrication around the bearings making the bearings difficult to roll on the track.

Garage door jamming can also be caused by the balance between the sides of the door to be uneven.

This kind of tilting of the garage door can take place in new as well as old homes, especially if it is a new subdivision and the land begins to settle underneath the cement of the garage door.

It may not be noticeable by the naked eye, but a surveyor could tell if this is the case by measurements.

One way to tell if this is the case is the pulleys on the garage doors both work, but one side tends to slack while the other side remains normal.

If the garage door continues to remain inoperable and you can’t locate a reasonable solution this may be the case for your local garage door repairman or some expert advice.

Manual Switch not Working

This scenario may not happen often but it could happen during the year, especially during colder months; that is, the garage remote fails to open the garage door.

You may have an automatic garage door openers that senses when you are at least 15-20 feet away and opens automatically or you have a remote that you use to tell the garage door to open.

If the automatic sensor doesn’t work take some time to check off these possible problems to see if they are the cause. First, the eye of the remote on the door is locked and can’t recognize the object approaching.

Perhaps something has smeared the remote electronic eye and it fails. Second, if you can locate the power source of the garage door make sure it is plugged in or nothing has caused it to get jammed so that the electricity is not flowing to the device.

Three, check all the cables that run to the power source and see if any of them is loose. Four, the door dislodged for some reason (this may happen if has been very cold and the door tracks are not well oiled or greased).

Five, check to see if someone locked the door from the inside. Six, check the battery in your remote and see if the battery has enough power to send the signal to the door remote.

Calling the Factory

Presuming you have made every effort you can to run your checklist as you should periodically and run regular DIY maintenance your garage door service should function for years without any problems.

In the case that your garage door does have a malfunction check you operators manual to see whether your garage door is still under warranty. If it is, then you are in good hands, since the next business day you can call the factory and have someone come over and fix your door.

If this is a renovated home and you are its new owner and the garage unit has not been replaced and the unit is out of warranty there are still plenty of good options.

Sometimes there are huge discounts on garage door units that have been replaced by more modern units with more bells and whistles but may not be necessary for your needs.

Your main concern here, as for all homeowners, is the safety of your home and your family.

Secondly, you can call the manufacturer and speak to the technicians of the garage door unit and explain to them the problem you are facing and you may find a solution that way.

Calling Cherry Hill Garage Door Repair

There are times when it is necessary to call a garage door repair and that may depend upon various circumstance. Here are a few that may be considered jobs for an expert. First, your garage door springs has sprung.

This can happen if the clamps of the spring have broken on one end and the garage door springs is no longer able to retain its clamp to its door; consequently, one side of the door has no spring.

In that case, you need a replacement. At least you now know what is wrong and you can fix it within a reasonable amount of time.

Garage Door Springs Breaking?

There are practical reasons why a garage door springs would break though none of them seem to be O.K. First, wear and tear. Either the spring was made from poor metal or the quality of the spring was weak.

Torsion spring operates on spring tension and when the spring cannot withstand the tension then the spring usually gives. This kind of break of a tension spring is normally a problem in large industrial garage doors that need to withstand repeated high amounts of tension thousands of times a year.

Secondly, as mentioned earlier if the amount of tension found in each garage door springs on the door is in an unbalanced state then this may be a cause of the spring breaking sooner than it would under normal conditions.

Professional garage door springs can give you more information about how to avoid these tensions with regular checks to the system.

Thirdly, rust and corrosion, especially a place that is near salty air, like oceanfronts and seasides, may have a cause in weakening the garage door springs enough to corrode or rust.

Rust works at the core of the spring and breaks down its ability to sustain the tension under normal conditions. Many suggest WD-40 at various times of the year to coat the outside of the garage door springs very helpful.

Garage Door Off Track

When a garage door comes off its track it makes for a dangerous circumstance for those who travel thru that area. As soon as a homeowner identified the door off its track then it should be set off-limits for anyone to come thru that area.

By making the location of the off-track garage door off limits for others the homeowner can avoid any potential danger to others. Even pets should also be kept clear if the case the garage door falls and harms the animal.

If the animal sleeps in the garage door it bed should be moved in a safe distance away from the area.

While the statistic is not high a recent survey showed that a large percentage of homeowners suffer injury from garage doors falling on them from above, the study said about 2,200 of these are injuries that happened while the garage door was in place, but fell suddenly.

Another very common injury with garage doors is members of a family getting their fingers pinched when a garage door is closing or opening by placing their fingers between the door and the door opening.

While the garage door is off its track stay clear of it until the repairman arrives. Do not get alarmed a professional repairman has all the tools to repair the garage door.

In the case that the garage door was run into by a car and caused it to go off its rollers or track the garage door may have to be assessed for repair by a professional before insurance damage may be claimed.