How Can You Keep Your Garage Door Running Smoothly?

There are a few tips and maintenance items you can do to make sure your garage door runs smoothly as long as you live in your house.

When it comes to your garage door, there are a few maintenance items you need to take care of to ensure that it runs smoothly and properly.

First, we want to clear up the misconception that garage doors are weather-tight. We try to make them as tight as possible, but no garage door is waterproof. High winds and a combination of snow or rain can cause a small amount of water to seep through the bottom corners. A little bit of caulking along the bottom where the sides meet the concrete and the weather stripping can help, but there’s no way to keep 100% of the water out during such adverse weather conditions.

The most important task is to make sure the weather stripping at the bottom of your door makes a tight seal against the concrete. Ideally, you shouldn’t be able to see any daylight creep through.

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 No garage door is waterproof.

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The same rule applies to the weather stripping on the sides of the doors. If your stripping is lighter in color, sunlight can sometimes penetrate that material and emit through the other side and give the illusion that the stripping isn’t making a tight seal. If you check the sides and don’t find any gaps in the stripping, though, you have nothing to worry about.

One of the jokes we like to tell homeowners is that their walkthrough is the quietest their garage door will ever be. Over time, dust and debris collect inside the tracks of your door’s rollers and cause the door to squeak and pop when it’s in motion.

After the first year of living in your home, you should regularly check that the tracks and the brackets attaching the door to the foundation are tight and sturdy. You should also lubricate the rollers with an approved spray so they slide with ease. You also want to spray and lubricate the door’s hinge points from time to time. You can usually find sprays made specifically for this application at your local hardware store.

If you have any questions about garage door maintenance or any other real estate topic, give us a call or shoot us an email. We’d be happy to help.

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