Garage doors today are built to last 15 to 20 years. If you want to maximize the use of your door, you will need to give it a periodic summer garage door maintenance, to ensure that you catch any problems early. And with the summer months, comes summer maintenance for your home. There are important summer maintenance tasks to be done. The heat and humidity of the summer can make a garage extremely uncomfortable and this could be dangerous if combustible supplies are stored in a garage. Here are some of the ways we would help in maintaining your garage doors during the summer.
- Check the Hardware for wear and tear: during summer, it is important to check for signs of broken or bent hinges, wear or tear, rusty rollers, rusty springs and other hardware that needs to be tightened well. You need to check for all the lifting cables that are not operating properly and fix them. Regardless of the number of years you have been using your garage door, it should open and close smoothly. If yours doesn’t, the springs may need some adjustment or greasing. We would check the brackets at the bottom, the pulley and cable system to change the ball bearings of the pulleys that might have worn out with constant usage.
Clean and lubricate the hardware: it is advisable to inspect all the parts of the door every weekend during the summer months. The hardware of the door should be free from debris or build-up caused by lack of proper lubrication. If you find out that there is dirt in this area, use an old toothbrush or paint brush to remove the dirt build-up and lubricate the door if necessary. All the other parts of the door should be well lubricated always in order to prevent a noisy door when it is been opened or closed. It is advisable to use a grease based lubricant such as a lithium or silicon spray.- Test the Garage door balance: if your garage door is not properly balanced, the garage door opener will have to work harder, this won’t make the door last as long as required. You can check your garage door balance by disconnecting the door opener by pulling the release handle (which is usually a red cord), manually move the door about halfway up. If it doesn’t stay put, the counterweight system is improperly balanced. We can help in repairing this particular problem.
- Remove rust: if you can see any visual signs of rusting on any part of your unit, then it is time to do some work. After using sandpaper to remove the rust, a coat of exterior latex is added to prevent further rusting
- Painting: it is the idea to wash and paint your garage door during summer months. Steel and aluminum door can be washed easily with household detergent. Steel doors should be painted with 100 percent acrylic latex exterior paint, no oil based paint. Make sure you clean the door first so that it is free of dirt or oil.
Proper summer time maintenance can help keep your items away from extreme temperature changes and also extend the life of your garage door.