Garage Door Repair

There’s almost no other part of your home that experiences as much wear and tear as your overhead garage door. The average residential overhead garage door will go up and down more than a thousand times a year. When kept in good working order, your overhead door provides convenience and security. But a neglected door can not only become as noisy as a locomotive but also pose a significant safety risk to your family, especially your kids. Colorado has some very unforgiving weather and your garage door bears that beating! We’ve had some bad hail seasons lately and we want to make sure that every home’s garage doors are protected and working well.

Overhead garage doors, whether they roll up in sections or swing up in one piece, operate on spring tension. The door moves on metal tracks on the garage walls, and a heavy spring or springs provide the power. In most cases when the door doesn’t work easily, it needs to be looked at and repaired.

Does your garage door sound squeaky? Is the alignment of your door off? Do the components of your garage door look old and rusty?

COMMON PROBLEMS

So what has caused you to ask yourself, do I need a new garage door? There are a number of issues that are common for garage door owners and that are repairable if a professional is consulted. Let’s explore a few of them.

The Door Suddenly Stops Working:

You might think that if you wake up one morning and your garage door doesn’t work, that it is dead and you’ll have to brace yourself for a complete replacement.

Interestingly, sudden breakdowns are usually easier to fix. That’s because the problem is usually isolated. Because it’s sudden, you haven’t been mis-using your door for years, causing irreparable damage.

First and foremost, always check the batteries in the remote before calling repairman. Sometimes in the stress of an early morning commute with a non-functioning garage door, even the most mindful homeowner will forget to check the batteries and then feel the embarrassment of knowing that the only thing wrong was a couple dead AAs.

However, if you are confident that you don’t just need new batteries, make sure to call a professional. A service person with experience will be able to diagnose the problem and fix the issue, saving you precious time. Again, while you may be able to save money in the short term by taking a day off and troubleshooting the problem yourself, the amount of energy and time lost as you search out the issue will quickly surpass the cost of a professional repair. Time is money!

The Door Seems Heavy:

Springs are installed within your garage lift mechanism in order to help lift the door, because it’s REALLY heavy! Because doors are so heavy, the lift motor would undergo far more significant wear and tear if it had to lift the full weight of the door every time you opened it. Furthermore, in order to ensure that you can open your door even if you lose power in your home, springs allow you to lift the door by hand when the motor is disengaged.

If your door feels heavy, it is likely that your springs have started to wear down and are no longer capable of bearing the weight that they once did. Most garage door springs are engineered for about 10,000 cycles, that usually equates to about ten years before the springs break. Broken springs can be dangerous as many homeowners think they can pull the emergency release from the opener and operate the door manually. If the door is in the open position with a broken spring and the emergency release is pulled, the full weight of the door will fall..
 

Luckily, worn or broken springs are generally a quick and affordable fix. A repair person will come and replace your springs — always making sure to replace both simultaneously to maintain balance in your door — and soon be on their way.
 

A Single Panel is Damaged:
If you do have physical damage to your door, regardless of the cause, you want to get it repaired quickly if you want the repair to be cost-effective.

Panel replacement can be tricky as manufacturers discontinue door models and it can be difficult to track down replacement panels.

The key is to repair a damaged panel Is to be sure that damage is limited to one panel. In most cases there is subtle damage to other panels which over time can lead to problems. It’s always best to have a professional evaluate your door to check for hidden damage and evaluate other hardware on the door to give you options..Once you are replacing more than a couple panels, it isn’t any cheaper than replacing the whole door.

So if you do dent your door backing out of your driveway or because your child is learning how to throw fast-pitch, make sure that you address the issue immediately if you want to avoid a total replacement.

Your Garage Door is Sagging or uneven:
When your door is closed only half way, does it look like one side is lower than the other? That’s the tell-tale sign of an imbalanced garage door. While it might just look funny, it is also a sign that your door is putting increased wear and tear on the lifting mechanism.
 

Think about the importance of having balanced tires on your car. If one tire is more worn than the rest, your car won’t work as efficiently. Simultaneously, certain parts of your car will bear the brunt of that increased wear more than others. That’s why it’s so important to rotate your tires regularly.

The same is true of garage doors. If one side of your door is sagging, it is likely that only one spring has begun to wear or the cables that attach the springs to the door are uneven. That means that one side of your door is heavier than the other, putting uneven stress on your lift motor and door components..
 

Luckily, re-balancing your door is a simple fix and requires a similar procedure to replacing your springs. By replacing both springs and then rehanging your door, a service person will restore the important balance of your door and ensure that it will wear evenly moving forward.

When looking at repairing your garage door, it’s important to know everything to look over. At Million Garage Door, we take care to inspect the hardware, springs, chains, and mechanisms to insure your garage door is operating effectively. When we replace the parts, we use high quality materials that are built to last. At the end of the day, we want to make sure that your home is protected and you can rest easy.

Needing an evaluation of your garage door? 

We service Fountain, Pueblo, Colorado Springs and surrounding areas.