In Georgia, a shiny, new garage door is a significant investment for many homeowners. The last thing you want is to have to buy a new garage door or make untimely repairs. Scheduling regular garage door maintenance is essential in ensuring your garage door lasts as long as possible. Below, you will find tips on how to maintain your garage door and improve its lifespan.

For additional tips for how to maintain garage door performance and lifespan, contact Long View Lighting in Woodstock, GA, for specific and advanced advice by calling 770-790-3511.

Understand Your Garage Door’s Operation

The first step to proper garage door maintenance is to understand how your garage door works. There are different types of doors, including:

Sectional garage doors
Fixed garage doors
Roll-up garage doors
Carriage garage doors
Retractable garage doors

Take the time to identify the type of garage door you have and learn about what each of its components does. Understanding how your garage door works with its dedicated garage door openers is practical when making repairs or performing maintenance if electrical or mechanical issues arise.

Make Regular Performance Checks

To extend longevity, you’ll need to know how to maintain garage door performance and check it to detect issues that may warrant repairs. Regular performance checks include performing the following tasks and addressing changes if they arise:

Listening for abnormal sounds coming from the motor or tracks
Checking opening and closing speed and evenness

You should contact a professional garage door repair service to resolve performance issues, as they can quickly become worse and potentially cause damage to your car or other possessions in your garage if not addressed.

Look Out for Water Damage

Whether your garage door is steel or wood, it is prone to water damage. Check for rust on steel garage doors and warping or rotting on wooden doors, as these are signs of water damage.

Luckily, you can resolve minor rusting by removing rust from affected areas and painting over the water damage. However, significant rust buildup or wood rot may warrant a complete replacement if the damaged areas vastly reduce performance.

Tighten Loose Hardware Appropriately

As you use your garage door, bolts and other hardware may loosen over time, putting you at risk and increasing the need for future repairs. You should inspect all parts and gently tighten those that need it with a socket wrench to avoid over-tightening and stripping that will require further repairs.

A professional garage door repair technician can tighten loose hardware if you are unsure how to identify and resolve potential problem areas.

Maintain Individual Parts

Garage doors contain many individual parts that require attention. You shouldn’t just look at your garage door as a whole. Instead, regularly maintain individual components, including moving parts such as hinges, rollers, and torsion springs.

Moving parts require lubrication to ensure your garage door moves smoothly. Be sure to use a silicone or lithium-based lubricant and avoid using products that will remove grease, such as WD-40.

Additionally, cleaning the garage door’s tracks is necessary for ensuring rollers can move freely. Debris from pests, dust, and built-up grease can prevent your garage door from moving smoothly. To safely remove dirt, you can sweep away free debris and use a grease cleaner and scrub brush to remove hardened dirt.

Ensure It Seals and Protects

Your garage door’s seal makes a difference in its lifespan as the seal prevents debris, water, and other environmental inconveniences from entering your garage.

The weatherstripping at the bottom of the door is prone to cracking and further damage from the environment and long-term garage door operation. You can use caulk and weatherstripping to effectively seal up cracks and block cold air, dust, and more from reaching your indoor environment from the door’s perimeter.

If you have an insulated garage door, the indoor temperature heavily depends on the insulation’s condition. Interior insulation requires replacement if you discover damaged areas so that your garage stays warm and protected in the winter.

Watch for Wear

Wear on cables and garage door springs can cause instant damage if you don’t notice and treat it promptly. If a worn garage door cable breaks, the door can fall or become unbalanced, damaging your vehicle as you exit and enter or putting you in danger when operating the door.

Watch for wear, and be sure to contact a professional repair service immediately if you notice your cables and springs getting rusty or thin.

Perform Tests for Safety and Balance

Garage doors have high safety standards. Safety functions such as the auto-reverse function are in place to protect people and objects that fall under the garage door as it closes. You should regularly test this safety function and others to prevent accidents by placing an object under the door and closing it. Be sure that the photoelectric sensors make the garage door reverse if an object falls under it.

In addition to safety features, a balance test is also helpful in ensuring your garage door lasts long. An unbalanced door can make the opener fail or break moving components. If you are not confident in performing this test and making adequate repairs, consider calling in a professional to handle it.

Get Effective Garage Door Repairs and Maintenance

Do you know how to maintain garage door longevity or make necessary repairs? Causes of damaged garage doors are a hassle to deal with, but Long View Lighting’s garage door repair service is detailed and thorough to meet all your garage door’s needs to extend longevity. Call Long View Lighting at 770-790-3511 to learn more about garage door repair costs or schedule an appointment for maintenance.