Your Neighborhood Garage Door Repair team occasionally receives calls from someone who has a garage door that is not operating properly. There isn’t anything obvious that’s causing the problem, yet the door seems to be having a problem. Further inspection reveals water damage has occurred underneath the siding of the home. From the outside of your home, everything looks fine, however behind the siding is decayed and rotted wood from water damage.
How Water Damage Occurs in a Garage Door Header
Most frequently water damage occurs in homes that have vinyl siding or trim. If you look at the profile or the side view, of vinyl siding you’ll see the pieces have a ‘J’ shape that interlinks one piece to the next. Think of siding looking like a series of fish hooks hanging from each other. ‘J’ channel is not watertight.
Another area of leakage is caused by siding strips not long enough to cover the entire length of your home. You’ll see that several pieces in each layer overlap each other. Where these pieces join together water can leak underneath and get behind the siding.
Vinyl Siding and Brick or Stone Leakage
If your home’s exterior has different surfaces on it, for example, brick or stone with vinyl siding, where the different surfaces meet are especially prone to the same leakage problem. When this problem occurs flashing behind the siding will stop water from getting behind siding or trim.
Replacing Rotted or Decaying Wood
The header of your garage needs to be stable and secure as it bears significant weight when operating your garage door. Water can be very destructive and will rot and decay wood. Before a drip cap flashing can be installed the decayed area will need to be replaced.
Installing a Garage Door Drip Cap
If there is no decayed or rotting word, a drip cap can be installed above your garage door using these easy steps:
- Remove the siding or trim to expose the weather resistant barrier (frequently called Tyvek) underneath
- Cut a piece of drip cap flashing to fit above your garage door
- Using the garage doors trim edge as a guideline use a box cutter-style blade to cut the weather resistant barrier
- Carefully position the drip cap in place, slipping the upper edge behind the edge of the weather resistant barrier
- Secure the flashing, nailing it underneath the weather barrier, being careful to make sure the drip cap does not redirect water back to the building.
- Seal the slit in the water-resistant barrier to the drip pan flashing with weather resistant building tape.
- Put the siding back in place. Leave a 3/8” gap between the drip cap and the siding.
That’s it! Now you can be assured no water will get behind the water barrier of your garage door.
Call Us For Help!
Your Neighborhood Garage Door Repair team is always available to help with your garage door problems. Give us a call and we will dispatch a technician to your location. Help is just a phone call away.
