When you're getting home late or leaving early, nothing sparks a guilty cringe quite like a screeching garage door. A new or well-maintained garage door should open almost silently. Over time, however, parts come loose and wear down, generating noise as they struggle to perform. The resulting sound can wake up your family and neighbors and leave you dreading your commute. Thankfully, it's not difficult to find the source of the problem and bring peace and quiet back to your drive.
Before starting any kind of work on a garage door, please be aware that you're handling a complex and powerful system. One wrong decision can unleash costly and even dangerous results. With this in mind, if you ever feel uncertain about what you're doing, don't hesitate to call a professional, and never work on a garage door without cutting off power to it.
Identifying the Source of the Noise
Sometimes, it's easy to pinpoint the origins of door noise. Standing outside of your car, open and close the door. Pay careful attention to the type of sound as well as its general location. Is the door grinding, rattling, squeaking, or a combination of all three? Does the sound come from the sides of the door or toward the top? The more specific information you can gather, the more likely you are to isolate the cause.
Tightening Loose Components
Rattling indicates parts that have grown loose with use. This is one of the easiest problems to fix. With power to the door shut down, move down each track and tighten the bolts and nuts holding everything together. Be careful, however, not to overtighten. Too much resistance puts stress on the system and can shorten the lifespan of your door.
Lubricating Squeaky Rollers and Hinges
Lubrication keeps the components of your garage door working together smoothly. Once that lubricant wears off, extra friction generates both heat and noise. To avoid this, periodically clean your tracks and rollers of dust and spray them with garage door lubricant.
Replacing Worn Parts
Basic maintenance like the steps above will keep your garage door functioning better for longer. But eventually, even the best-maintained equipment will wear down. If tightening and lubricating don't stop the excess noise, you may need to replace parts such as the rollers, hinges, or springs.
Changing out garage door parts requires more technical knowledge than standard maintenance. In this case, contact a certified garage door technician to replace the components. Your local technician should be able to supply the right parts for your door and install them both safely and within operating standards. With the right care and attention, your garage door can function smoothly and quietly for years to come.
Contact a company like Smooth Operator Garage Doors LLC to learn more.
Hello. My name is Conner Justine. Welcome to my website. After years of owning my home, my garage doors finally gave up trying and were in dire need of replacement. They lasted for eons with regular maintenance and repairs, but it was well past time for new garage doors. So, we started that journey, taking the time to learn all we could before buying and installing our garage door. To keep that knowledge from going to waste, I decided to make this site and share that information with you all. Please feel free to stop on by anytime you need to learn more about garage doors.