We can’t imagine spending a single day without thinking about garage doors. That is largely because we are a same day garage door serving business in Sioux City, IA. But we like to think we would still care about such an important type of doorway even if we specialized in a radically different field of home maintenance, such as windows.
If you own or manage a property that includes at least one garage door, then you’ll want to pay attention to what we’re about to tell you: Regular garage door maintenance is essential! There are quite possibly dozens of reasons why that is true, but we believe the top five will do for the purposes of this article.
1. Garage Door Maintenance Saves Money
our garage door serves a simple purpose: to keep the garage open or closed, depending on your preference. But that doesn’t mean your garage door is a simple mechanism. It is a sophisticated assembly of springs, rollers, cables, drums and panels, all fine-tuned and interconnected to one another.
We’ll admit that a garage door isn’t as sophisticated as the engine of a Formula 1 racecar, but the two share similarities. When a single component of a high-performance engine misbehaves or malfunctions, it places added stress on every other part of the system. Likewise, a single malfunctioning part will accelerate wear and tear throughout a garage door. Nipping a small maintenance issue in the bud is the best way to prevent the need for larger garage door repairs!
2. Garage Door Maintenance Prevents Drama
We’re not referring to the kind of drama you see on soap operas. We’re talking about not being able to go to work, pick up your kids, or drive to an emergency room because you were unable to leave your house.
A garage door can easily weigh 100 to 400 pounds. A lot of folks can’t lift that much weight over their heads, which is why a garage door has a torsion spring. It pulls on the door so it feels like it only weighs about 12 pounds. If a failure to conduct regular maintenance results in a broken torsion spring, even a mechanical opener will be unable to safely open a garage door.
Your garage door also has extension springs, which need virtually identical maintenance. That includes regular lubrication to prevent rust, and replacement whenever regular usage has made the springs too inelastic to do their job effectively.
3. Garage Door Maintenance Reduces Noise
Garage door maintenance always includes thorough inspection of the rollers, hardware and every part that requires lubrication. That is largely because those parts create noise when they are respectively worn, loose and unlubricated. Excessive noise during operation can also result when an opener violently rattles in its mounts during otherwise normal operation – a problem that is easily remedied with the installation of anti-vibration pads.
4. Garage Door Maintenance Helps Prevent Accidents
As of 1993, every new automatic garage door system is required to include a built-in automatic shutoff or safety reversing mechanism. That rule was instituted by the Consumer Product Safety Commission in hopes of reducing the approximately 30,000 injuries caused by garage doors each year.
Unfortunately, those potentially life-saving systems fail to work properly almost half of the time. If you have small children who might think nothing of running toward a closing garage door, then you owe it to them to maintain your garage door’s vital automatic safety feature. Any sign of malfunction demands immediate repair!
5. Garage Door Maintenance Keeps Things Dry
The bottom edge of any garage door must have weatherstripping. The supple PVC or EPDM strip prevents rainwater and meltwater from entering the garage, where they can moisten Christmas decorations or even cause black mold to breed in the walls. Garage door weatherstripping also enhances the home’s overall insulation, as it retains heat in the winter and repels it during the summer.
By design, garage door weatherstripping is regularly crushed under immense weight. It loses its elasticity over time, and eventually forms too many cracks to do its job correctly. That’s why regular garage door maintenance includes inspection and possible replacement of weatherstripping!
It is easy to maintain several aspects of your own garage – lubricating metal parts doesn’t require a whole semester at trade school. But only a professional can tell when certain parts aren’t working correctly and why. It is also impossible for a DIYer to replace certain garage door parts, such as its springs.
If you reside or manage a property in the greater Sioux City, IA area, contact Shawn’s Same Day Service Garage Door today for all your garage door service needs. When it comes to garage door repair & replace, we’re an ace!