With winter right around the corner, home and business owners should really consider putting some extra effort into their seasonal garage door maintenance. Taking proper care to prepare your garage door’s parts for the next few wet, cold months can keep you from having issues both during and after winter wreaks its havoc.

Why it’s Important to Winterize Your Garage Door

A garage door that isn’t properly prepared for winter can actually become a costly detriment to your home. We tend not to pay much attention to our garage doors until they’re broken, but if you’re skipping seasonal maintenance, you’ll have a broken garage door on your hands way more often than you should. Some advantages to winterizing your garage door include:

• Keep garage door parts from seizing up.
• Increase energy efficiency/keep your garage warm and dry.
• Prevents salt and water damage to the overhead door and its parts.
• Protects other infrastructure in your home (i.e. plumbing pipes).

Simple Garage Door Maintenance Tips to Prep for “The Big Dark”

Sacramento winters may not be icy, but we do experience a seriously wet season. And water, especially water with road salt or water that freezes and thaws, will wreak absolute havoc on all your garage door’s parts. Metal parts need cleaned and lubricated, because on very small levels, most metals shrink in the cold. And then you also have the possibility of all the moisture causing corrosion. 

Here are some simple tasks you can perform before winter comes to ensure you won’t need a broken garage door repaired once spring comes around:

• First, fully inspect your garage door and all moving garage door parts to ensure nothing’s already messed up. If there is an issue, like a broken garage door spring, hinge, panel or pulley, get it fixed ASAP so you’re prepared for the coming weather. Garage door parts all need to work together perfectly so you don’t end up with a door off track or off balance, so before you do any of your own maintenance, make sure your garage door is in working order.
• Check all the weather stripping and replace it if any parts are brittle, torn, have fallen out of place, or have started developing a crackly pattern on the surface. If any of these things are already an issue, the weather stripping will definitely fail when up against the wet and cold of winter.
• Add insulation to your garage door. If your garage door is old or damaged and defunct, you may even consider installing a new garage door with interior insulation before winter comes.
• Clean debris and surface rust off all of your garage door parts, including the inside of the tracks, the rollers, hinges, springs, etc. 
• Lubricate appropriate moving parts with a lubricant specially made for garage door parts. You can find these types of lubricants at any home improvement store. Never lubricate tracks or bearings; it’ll end up doing exactly the opposite of what you want it to.
• Lastly, consider expanding this garage door maintenance to your entire garage. You can take measures like repairing and insulating walls, covering any exposed pipes, sealing the floor, organizing items inside the garage, etc.

The point of all of this is to ensure your garage and its overhead door suffer as little damage as possible. Not only will this mean less garage door repair costs, but it’ll also make your spring garage door maintenance and cleaning routine that much easier.