Garage door openers need to be maintained just like any other part of your system. The team here at Neighborhood Garage Door Repair suggests you take these maintenance steps once a year. Our friendly technicians would be happy to come out and handle this maintenance for you if you’d rather.
1. Check Over The Hardware
Parts tend to wear out every 10,000 cycles depending on the quality of the parts. Higher end brands may last 25,000 cycles. In order to catch parts before they break, you should look over everything for signs of wear and tear. When you are performing maintenance on your opener, take that time to look over everything else.
Things to be on the lookout for include:
- Loose bolts
- Rust on cable
- Wearing on the sides of rollers
- Broken pieces
- Missing screws
- Fraying cable
- Gaps in the springs
These are a few of the things you are checking for when doing a visual inspection of your system.
2. Tighten Up the Screws
Go ahead and tighten the screws that hold the opener in place. Even if they do not seem loose, this can reduce the noise you are hearing. The vibrations from the door can cause screws and bolts to wiggle loose.
You should also consider tightening up all of the other hardware on your door since you are performing maintenance. There are screws on all of the hinges and tracks. Just be sure to not over tighten the bolts.
3. Balance the Door
While balancing the door isn’t maintenance that you do directly on your opener, it is important to extend the life of your system. An unbalanced door will cause the opener to pull and have to work harder.
To determine if it is balanced, shut the door and pull the emergency release cord to disconnect the door from the trolley. You should be able to lift the door without resistance. If you feel resistance on one side or the other, then you know it is not balanced.
4. Test The Reversing Mechanism On The Door
All doors should have the safety reversing mechanism installed. This feature keeps your family safe. To test this, you will place a trash can or item that is tall enough to hit the sensors on the ground. The two safety eye sensors are placed at either side of the garage door.
Hit the button and let the the door start closing. When it reaches the item you placed on the ground, it should immediately reverse and go back up. If this is not working, you need to have one of our technicians come out and take care of it.
Call Us Today For Garage Door Maintenance
Get in touch with our team here at Neighborhood Garage Door Repair today to come out and handle the maintenance on your opener. We’ll make sure that everything is functioning the way it is supposed to.
