Electric Garage Door Openers
Electric Garage Door Openers — Necessary Maintenance
Electric garage door openers are extraordinarily useful and convenient devices, but as many homeowners have discovered too late, they are not without their needs. Without regular inspection and maintenance, an electric garage door opener can suddenly and unexpectedly become quite a burden. To keep your opener working as long as possible, there are a few simple steps you should take at least twice a year — during fall and spring if you live in a temperate climate, simply because there are no temperature extremes that can cause you to slightly misadjust the device.
Start your inspection by looking at every part of the system. Look for loose bolts or screws, worn or distorted metal, dirty tracks, rusty or bent springs, levers, hinges, and cables, and frayed electrical wire. Keep the mechanism clean and if you see any signs of metal stress or unexpected bends, dents, or distortions, it’s time for a test run.
Use the electric garage door opener first, keeping careful watch for any trembles, hiccups, or unexpected noises as the door descends. If you see something significant, move on to step two: raise the door back up, use the manual disconnect to detach the door from the opener, and lower it by hand.
If the problems go away, you have an issue because the flaw is with the opener itself. Electric garage door openers are stable, reliable machines, but they can go wrong quickly and profoundly. It’s often less expensive to replace a chain drive opener than it is to have it repaired, and screw drive systems rarely break just a little bit – but belt drive systems can frequently be repaired more inexpensively than they can be replaced.
If the doors are still difficult to open and close when the opener is disconnected, then the problem is either the tracks or the springs. Start by cleaning and tightening the tracks and lubricating everything with a light oil; it’s a simple process that will solve most problems. If it doesn’t, it’s time to examine the springs.
The springs should be able to keep the door exactly half open without any assistance on your part — if they can’t, they’re likely the culprit. If the door starts to go up from halfway, the springs are too tight and need to be loosened. More likely, if the door starts to descend and then suddenly crashes down, your springs are worn out and must be replaced. Don’t ever do this yourself; the springs are under extreme tension and are very dangerous to disconnect.
If your garage door is made of wood, you will need to repaint the outside of your door every two to three years. If your door is a once-piece door and it spends any amount of time in the open position, examine it for sagging and consider adding a metal reinforcing strip or two if you see any evidence of it
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