Reasonably-priced garage door repair and installation in Sacramento
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Garage Door Repair & Maintenance

Your garage door is probably the largest movable object in your house. Keeping your overhead door in good condition ultimately comes down to a safety issue, especially if you’ve got children or pets. There are several routine DIY maintenance and repair jobs you can perform on your garage door to keep it at its best, whether you’re dealing with heavy rains in Sacramento or wet winters in Seattle. This will increase the safety of your home and your garage door, as well as minimize garage door repair costs in the future. 

Ultimately, doing simple garage door maintenance tasks yourself could be the different between needing an inexpensive garage door repair every so often or having your garage door break in a catastrophic way. And we don’t have to tell you that replacing a broken garage door costs way more than having a trolley repaired or a torsion spring replaced.

Simple Garage Door Maintenance You Can Do Yourself

There are several simple things you can do yourself to maintain your garage door, and they really should be on your seasonal to-do list. Things like inspecting your garage door springs, lubricating your garage door parts, and making sure weather seals are in good condition:

Lubrication Helps Maintain Garage Door Parts & Opener Function

Always keep your garage door’s moving parts well-lubricated with lubrication specifically made for garage doors. You can easily find these types of products at home improvement/hardware stores. This is a time when WD40 isn’t the best option; you want a lithium or silicone spray. Apply it liberally to the top part of the chain rail, stems, hinges, metal rollers that come with ball bearings, the arm bar, nubs, spring, and the lock. Don’t worry about the chain rail, the chain, or the garage door track.

Rather than lubricate the track, you should clean it regularly. Wipe the inside portion of the track with a wet cloth, followed by a dry cloth. In this one case, WD40 does make a nice solution if there are any sticky areas on the track. Be sparing in your lubrication of the garage door’s tracks, though. And by that we mean, do everything you can to clean those grimy parts before you resort to WD40. It seems counterintuitive, but lubricating the tracks on your garage door can actually increase dirt and grime accumulation, making your garage door opener work harder to drag the rollers through goopy, clogged tracks.

Why Lubrication is So Important for Avoiding Costly Garage Door Repairs

Keeping your garage door properly oiled can significantly reduce any noise issues, and keep your garage door opening smoothly and easily. You should also replace any rollers that are old or worn. You can get most rollers from a home repair store or your local garage door service shop. We always recommend replacing metal rollers with nylon ones – they’re hardier and they can’t rust or corrode. Nylon rollers also move through the tracks with less friction than metal ones. 

Lubrication is a great (and easy) DIY garage door repair/maintenance that’s sure to extend the life of all you garage door parts, because it reduces friction between all the moving parts, meaning the opener system has to work less hard each time you open and close your garage door. It also prevents and slows rust and corrosion, because it protects the metal garage door parts from moisture.

Another Easy Garage Door Repair: Fixing Dents!

If you’ve got kids, it’s probably a given that your garage door has dents, whether from stray basketballs or a new teen driver. These can add up overtime until your door just looks beaten up. Fortunately, there’s an easy science fix that makes this a simple DIY garage door repair for aluminum garage doors. There’s also a simple solution for dents in steel garage doors!

For dented aluminum garage doors, start by washing off the dented area with soap and water and allowing it to dry. Next, cover the area with aluminum foil, pressed into the shape of the dent. Run a lit lighter or other heating source (like a heat gun, or even a hair dryer) across the foil to heat it. While it’s still hot, take a can of condensed CO2 and spray the heated foil. The dent should pop back in place within a couple minutes. 

When aluminum is dented, it is stretched out of form. The extreme change in temperature is a nice little DIY garage door repair trick that reverses the stretch, which is why it just pops back into place. This trick requires hardly any tools or professional experience. You could even turn it into a fun little science experiment for the kids. Stubborn dents, however, or ones that have compromised the structure of the panel itself may still require the work of a professional, which is what we’re here for!

For dented steel garage doors, you basically deal with it the same way you deal with repairing drywall. Go to your local hardware store or garage door repair shop and get steel filler bonding. Clean the dented area and lightly sand it. This ensures there’s no dirt or grime that would stop the filler from adhering to the steel, and roughs up the surface a little to further help adherence. 

Apply the filler across the entire face of the dent. When it’s fully dry, sand any irregularities until it’s smooth and level with the rest of the overhead door panel. After, a quick coat of paint will have your garage door looking brand new! However, just like with aluminum garage doors, if your panel was dented to the point of cracking the steel or messing up a track, give us a call; not every garage door repair is simple enough to do yourself.

Replacing Worn Garage Door Bottom Seals

If you have an old garage door bottom seal, you can replace it yourself fairly easily for about $50 in about an hour. Garage door weather seals are usually sold as cut-to-size, so set the seal along the bottom of your overhead door while it’s closed and measure and cut to the length you need. Then,  simply remove the worn seal and attach the new one. 

Keeping a good seal on your garage door protects it from water and other weather elements – not to mention vermin and small critters looking for a quiet place to nest – and will also improve temperature control both in the garage and in your home. Seals need changed out every so often because these weather elements, like Seattle’s snow or Sacramento’s rain, take a toll on the seal’s flexibility and function. Over time, garage door seals become brittle and crack, break, come loose, or all three.

Regularly Inspect Your Garage Door Springs & Cables

While you should never fix your garage door’s cables or torsion springs yourself, you should give them a visual inspection at least twice a year. Look for any rust, bends or worn ends in the springs, as well as any rust or fraying in the cables. If you notice any wear, call your professional garage door service company for a safety inspection. This is one place where you should not do it yourself, even if you’ve watched 17 YouTube videos and feel like you probably could. It’s not safe. Leave it to the pros – just give us a call.

When to Call a Pro for Garage Door Repair

Some regular garage door maintenance issues you can do yourself. But if you are having problems you can’t resolve, or that are dangerous to do yourself (like garage door spring repair), these cases require an inspection and diagnosis from a professional garage door service company. Here are a few instances of when you might want to call in the pros:

The Garage Door is Off Balance

You should be able to raise your garage door off the ground a few feet and not have one end or the other droop. If it cannot maintain a straight line, your door is out of balance. This puts extra pressure on different moving parts associated with the garage door opener, which can result in over wear or even cause them to break. You also risk running the door off its tracks, which will also require a professional to fix in a safe and knowledgeable manner. Properly balancing a garage door requires finesse and an experienced eye.

The Garage Door Springs are Worn or Broken

You can visually inspect your garage door springs for rust or fraying, but if you suspect a problem, you’ll want to call in a serious professional to take a look and see what needs to be repaired. Your garage door springs are under an incredible amount of tension. If they suddenly release or break, they can cause serious bodily damage or even death. This is perhaps the garage door repair with the most serious safety risks if you try to do it yourself. Always call a professional when you need to intervene with the springs; it’s simply unsafe to do yourself.

The Garage Door has Come Off Track

If your garage door comes off its track, stop operating it immediately. Don’t try to force it, because you could cause real and very expensive damage. Call us to put it back on track; the track may need to be straightened or some paneling may need replacing.

If you happen to catch it before any serious damage occurs, you might be able to pop the rollers back into the track and reattach the door on your own. But since the tracks are the literal infrastructure that allows the garage door to move up and down, the garage door coming off its tracks, or track damage that is interfering with the door’s function, this is really a time you should call the professionals at Sacs.

SACS GARAGE DOOR REPAIR: Emergency Garage Door Repair for Urgent Issues

Not only is a broken garage door extremely inconvenient; it’s a safety risk to your health and home. And like most important things that give up the ghost, a garage door usually fails at the most inconvenient times. We provide on-call, 24/7 local garage door service for times just like this. Because a door off track, or compromised/broken torsion springs, are a high-priority issue. As well, if something bad happened to your garage door and it’s completely unsavable, we can easily replace your garage door in a day.

What to Do for a Garage Door Off Track

Your garage door goes up and down smoothly on rollers. The rollers fit into a track. Considering your garage door goes up and down literally thousands of times a year, naturally the garage door will come off its tracks from time to time. To fix a garage door that has come off its track, start by making sure the tracks are well anchored to the wall. Often, the reason the rollers are off track is because the tracks have come off of the wall. Tighten any loose brackets anchoring the track to the wall. Align the tracks by using a level. You may need to loosen the bolts and then tighten them back into alignment.

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