5 Signs Your Garage Door Needs A Repair
Most homeowners use their garage doors more often than their front doors to enter their homes, so keeping your garage door functioning properly is essential for your daily convenience. With regular daily use, it’s normal for your garage door to need repairs. Unfortunately, many homeowners make the mistake of only having their garage doors inspected by a professional once pieces of hardware or parts break. By delaying garage door repairs, you could experience costly and inconvenient emergency garage door repair or replacement later.
To avoid these untimely and expensive services, it’s important to recognize common signs that indicate your garage door needs repair.
Garage Door Won't Open Or Close
An obvious sign of a broken garage door is if the door won’t open or close when you hit the control buttons on the wall panel or remote. The cause of this malfunction could be easy to remedy, like an accidentally locked garage door or an engaged disconnect switch, or it could be larger problems like a faulty connection between the door and control panel, the door is off its tracks, misaligned photo eye sensors or other door malfunctions.
Noisy Door Operations
While it’s normal for your garage door to make some noise while operating, make note of any unusual garage door and opener sounds that indicate repair needs, including:
- Grating: Bent coils
- Rumbling: Loose spring tension
- Banging: Defective garage door panels
- Grinding: Worn rollers or poor lubrication of moving parts
- Squealing: Garage door is out of balance
- Rattling: A loose chain or support rails
- Straining: Defective garage door opener or inadequate horsepower
Garage Door Is Off Its Tracks
The garage door safely and reliably operates by moving up and down the tracks using rollers. Often when the garage door is older or has been damaged, the door can become dislodged from its tracks, preventing the door from being able to open and close properly. If your garage door is off its tracks, call a professional to inspect the problem and make repair suggestions.
Sagging Garage Door Sections
Part of regular garage door maintenance includes performing a balance test at least once or twice per year to check if your garage door panels are sagging. With a balance test, you’ll detach the door from the opener and then lift the garage door about halfway on its tracks. If the door stays in place, it’s properly balanced. But if it slams closed or snaps open, the door is off-balance or sagging. The cause of a sagging garage door could be worn tension springs or dulled rollers and tracks.
Slow Response Time
When you press your garage door remote, does the door take more than one or two seconds to respond? While waiting the extra time may not seem like a critical repair need, any operations taking more than a few seconds could indicate something wrong with your garage door system. Delayed operations can indicate a problem with the garage door or the opener, like broken opener cords, corroded pulleys, bad rollers or worn remote control circuitry.