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Repairing a garage door can be a simple weekend task or something that ends up being sufficiently complicated that you’ll need to get a professional garage door repairer involved.
Broadly speaking, the two main aspects of a functioning of a garage door are the door itself and the garage door opening mechanism.
Separating these when first looking at a damaged, broken, or malfunctioning door can help isolate the possible causes.
That’s always a good place to start even if you still plan to call a specialist in to get the work done because you know when something is too much for you.
Giving the Garage Door a First Look See
When operating the garage door by pressing on the remote control, does it do anything at all?
Are there any sounds coming from the garage door opener overhead? Does the door move up and then down again, but won’t go up fully?
Asking these kinds of questions is useful to determine what may be causing the difficulty when it’s not yet clear.
Examine the Garage Door Mechanism More Closely
Spring tension is used with the overhead garage door. That’s true whether they move up as a single piece or the door is made from sections that flex as they’re rotated up or down.
Metal tracks are fixed to the wall and ceiling that permit the door to effectively move on rails.
With the springs to provide support and movement, garage doors should move somewhat comfortably up and down without excessive effort being required.
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Follow These Steps for Garage Doors to Fix Several Issues
Step #1
Start with the mounting brackets that do the work of keeping the tracks attached to the wall and/or ceiling. Should they begin to work loose, then a screw or bolt is causing that.
And if the tracks have moved out of position as a result, the door won’t move correctly because they’re no longer properly spaced all the way along.
Light track damage can be fixed with a mallet or hammer, but significant track damage requires replacement parts.
Step #2
Use a leveler to verify that the tracks sit flat and level. The tracks must be lined up correctly otherwise the door won’t fully go up and into position.
The mountings can be adjusted to get the required result. Likely it will require a few tries and be quite frustrating too.
Step #3
For tracks with good alignment but that keep sticking, use a household cleaner in a concentrated mixture to clean any dirt or grease present.
Wipe the rollers to dry them and clean the tracks. Then retest the garage door.
Step #4
Look at the mounting plates to see if the screws are still tight enough. A sagging door indicates a hinge is busted. Replace any hinges that have evident damage on them.
Should any backing be damaged that supports the hinge or rolling, replace or fix it up, so it’ll provide the necessary support structure.
More Serious Garage Door Repairs
While many garage door repairs are simple enough, there are plenty that is more complicated and should be dealt with by professional repairers.
A garage door opener issue is often best resolved by a team of people. Similarly, issues with springs, especially tension-based ones including roll-up doors with a center torsion spring, are not to be handled alone.
The way they’re fitted, removing such springs can be dangerous and best left to people with the necessary equipment to do it safely.
For garage door repairs, giving it the once over to check for obvious problems is a good start. Many smaller issues are resolvable.
However, know your limits. More advanced repairs, especially including springs, should be referred to a repair team.
