A Complete Garage Door Maintenance Checklist
A garage door is indeed big and heavy, but everyone can actually perform a regular maintenance quickly yet safely without any help from a professional or technician. Let’s not forget that maintenance has a completely different meaning from a repair. It is merely a simple list of things to do to see symptoms of damages that possibly require more thorough inspections. Here is a complete garage door maintenance checklist that you can do easily.
1. Visual Inspection
The first thing to do is visual inspection, meaning you have to look carefully to every part of the garage door to see possible damages. Some of the most important things to check are the springs, hinges, cables, rollers, mounting hardware, and tracks. Some minor damages such as misaligned sensors or obstructions on the track are easy to fix, but you have to call a professional when it comes to electrical damage, replacing springs, or damaged rollers.
2. Balance Test
A balance test is only necessary when you have an automatic garage door opener. This is an important test to make sure that the door is safe to operate daily. You can start the test with the door panel in fully closed position. Turn off or disconnect the automatic opener and try to open the door manually. A normal door should open easily with only little resistance and remain open. If the door does not work that way, it has to be checked for damages by professional.
3. Reversing Mechanism
All modern garage doors are equipped with a reversing mechanism for safety reasons. With this feature, the door can automatically reverse its movement to a fully open position in case something is blocking its path. To perform this test, you have to start with the door in an open position. As you press the remote or wall button, the door panel will slowly move to close the garage. As it moves, use a stick to touch the bottom of the panel. When the panel strikes the stick, it should reverse its movement. If the reversing mechanism does not work, have the door fixed by a technician.
4. Photo Eye
Similar to the reversing mechanism, photo eye feature is as well equipped in every modern garage door opener system. Photo eye uses two sensors facing each other; as the door is closing, both sensors transmit beams to each other. If something is blocking the beam, the door panel will reverse its movement. You can try blocking the beam by waving a long stick in front of one sensor. In that case, a normal door will reverse back to a fully open position. If it does not reverse, there are some possible causes such as electric problems and broken sensors. You can also try to fix the problems by cleaning the sensors with a soft dry cloth and realigned them. When those don’t work, you need to seek for professional’s help to figure out the actual culprit.
5. Lubrication
Applying lubricant is probably the easiest thing to do in the checklist. In most cases, you need to lubricate the moving parts including rollers, hinges, and tracks. You should always follow the guidance written in the manual instruction that comes with the door and use the recommended lubricant for best results.
A garage door is indeed big and heavy, but everyone can actually perform a regular maintenance quickly yet safely without any help from a professional or technician. Let’s not forget that maintenance has a completely different meaning from a repair. It is merely a simple list of things to do to see symptoms of damages that possibly require more thorough inspections. Here is a complete garage door maintenance checklist that you can do easily.
1. Visual Inspection
The first thing to do is visual inspection, meaning you have to look carefully to every part of the garage door to see possible damages. Some of the most important things to check are the springs, hinges, cables, rollers, mounting hardware, and tracks. Some minor damages such as misaligned sensors or obstructions on the track are easy to fix, but you have to call a professional when it comes to electrical damage, replacing springs, or damaged rollers.
2. Balance Test
A balance test is only necessary when you have an automatic garage door opener. This is an important test to make sure that the door is safe to operate daily. You can start the test with the door panel in fully closed position. Turn off or disconnect the automatic opener and try to open the door manually. A normal door should open easily with only little resistance and remain open. If the door does not work that way, it has to be checked for damages by professional.
3. Reversing Mechanism
All modern garage doors are equipped with a reversing mechanism for safety reasons. With this feature, the door can automatically reverse its movement to a fully open position in case something is blocking its path. To perform this test, you have to start with the door in an open position. As you press the remote or wall button, the door panel will slowly move to close the garage. As it moves, use a stick to touch the bottom of the panel. When the panel strikes the stick, it should reverse its movement. If the reversing mechanism does not work, have the door fixed by a technician.
4. Photo Eye
Similar to the reversing mechanism, photo eye feature is as well equipped in every modern garage door opener system. Photo eye uses two sensors facing each other; as the door is closing, both sensors transmit beams to each other. If something is blocking the beam, the door panel will reverse its movement. You can try blocking the beam by waving a long stick in front of one sensor. In that case, a normal door will reverse back to a fully open position. If it does not reverse, there are some possible causes such as electric problems and broken sensors. You can also try to fix the problems by cleaning the sensors with a soft dry cloth and realigned them. When those don’t work, you need to seek for professional’s help to figure out the actual culprit.
5. Lubrication
Applying lubricant is probably the easiest thing to do in the checklist. In most cases, you need to lubricate the moving parts including rollers, hinges, and tracks. You should always follow the guidance written in the manual instruction that comes with the door and use the recommended lubricant for best results.
