Garage door maintenance in Phoenix, AZ isn’t exactly the most exciting household task to take on, but it’s important to keep your garage door operating smoothly so you are able to reliably get your vehicles in and out when you need to go to work or run errands. The average household opens and closes its garage door at least six times per day. When you extrapolate that over the course of 10 to 20 years, that’s a whole lot of regular wear and tear that builds up.
Part of excellent preventative maintenance is making sure you keep your garage door free of dirt and rust. This will help you prevent annoying noises and ineffective operation. The main areas you’ll want to look at are the rollers, roller hinges and chain—always leave maintenance of garage door springs in Phoenix, AZ up to professionals to avoid major accidents. Here are a few tips to help you in this process.
Use garage door lubricants
When working on the rollers, clean them with a rag and spray them with a lubricant designed for garage doors. While you may be able to get away with using general lubricants, you can guarantee that garage door-specific lubricants will be silicone-based, which will prevent dirt and grime from building up. These lubricants will also, of course, loosen up all the moving parts in your garage door system to make sure it runs smoothly and efficiently.
You can spray on both the right and left sides of the roller, right in the spot where the pin meets the wheel. Be sure to wipe off the excess. Make sure you avoid spraying nylon roller wheels, and wipe up any lubricant that gets on the track, because this could result in slippage.
Be safe with the garage door opener
When you’re working on the garage door opener, make sure you unplug it from the outlet before you begin. This will prevent someone else from unknowingly opening the door while you’re working on it, which could potentially cause an injury.
Make sure to check the garage door reversing sensors to make sure they’re in operational condition. The garage door should reverse and move back to the open position if something is in front of the sensors.
Check bolts, locks and other mechanisms
Check all roller hinges for loose bolts, and slide the manual lock mechanism back and forth to make sure it’s not going to accidentally engage. While you’re at it, you can check the locking mechanism’s mounting bolts to make sure they are also snug. You can then move on to checking the track brackets for tightness.
When looking at the track, check for any dings, bumps or other irregularities, and pound them level with a rubber mallet if possible (otherwise you may need to replace that section of track). Use brake cleaning solution to clean up the tracks if they are dirty, and make sure the garage door tracks are level on all sides.
For more information about garage door maintenance in Phoenix, AZ, contact Affordable Garage Doors today.
