When one of my children was playing with our garage doors a few years ago, we heard a piercing scream that we will never forget. She had gotten her fingers pinched in the side of the door, and we knew that we had to help her--and fast. Because of our quick actions and first aid, we were able to take care of the problem. After we returned home, I started thinking about ways to keep our kids safe around garage doors. This blog contains loads of helpful information about maintaining your garage doors, looking after your curious children, and preventing serious injury.
A nice garage door can be a sizable investment, so it's natural that you'd want to take some steps to keep it in good shape. Here are some of the things that you can do to take care of your garage door and make sure it lasts for many seasons to come.
Checking Your Door for Damage
When you do a manual inspection of your garage door, the biggest thing you're looking for is dents in the tracks. These can be a problem if they cause the material to be unstable and buckle. Plus, repeated rolls over a wrinkled track can put stress on the wheels and the pulleys of your garage door. For small cracks, you can sometimes fix them yourself using a rubber hammer to smooth out the dent. A garage door repair technician can also quickly repair these dents as long as they're caught early.
Cleaning the Components and Adding Grease
It's also a good idea to replace the lubrication on your garage door from time to time, use gentle soapy water to clean out the tracks and collect any debris that has gotten stuck to the grease. A soft bristle brush can also be helpful for cleaning dust and dirt out of the crevices. Then, use a designated garage door lubricant or graphite powder to lightly coat the tracks and the pulleys, making sure there's no runoff. A simple wipe-down of your tracks and pulleys with a lubricated rag should be enough to put on a light coating of lubricant.
Making Sure It's Fastened Correctly
During each inspection, you may also want to adjust the fasteners on your garage door to make sure that they're holding tension properly. Aside from adjusting the nuts and bolts to be sure they're correctly tightened, you may want to look at each fastener to make sure that it's still at a reasonable tightness. Replace any fasteners that are weaker than the others. If your tracks seem to be misaligned, then it's a good time to unfasten the entire system and correct the tension on each side.
Replacing Batteries
Finally, there are some benefits to replacing garage remote batteries sooner than you think you need to. If you wait until the batteries are dead, you can find yourself in an emergency if you're unable to get into the garage. Instead, replace them once a year along with your regular garage door checkup, and you can save yourself a lot of hassle.
For more tips on important maintenance steps for your garage, contact a local garage door repair company.
Share6 April 2016
