Maintain Your Springs to Prevent Garage Door Repair Calls

The modern garage door is stylish, quiet, reliable and energy efficient. They’re also high tech appliances that can be operated via your smartphone from halfway around the world, thereby providing an unparalleled level of security. But for all the advances made in garage door technology over the past couple of decades one thing remains stubbornly old school: the springs. While openers have gotten quieter, the movement of the door has become smoother and your material choices more numerous than ever, it’s still the springs that call the shots. If you don’t maintain them you’ll be calling for garage door repair in Boulder, CO before you know it.

Some Garage Door Repair Calls Can Be Prevented

We’re proud to be the best-rated garage door repair company in Loveland and Boulder. But frankly, some of the repair calls we go on could have been avoided if the homeowner had simply had us in earlier to do some quick maintenance on their garage door springs.

You see, while many components of today’s garage door have taken a turn toward high tech the whole mechanism stills relies almost exclusively on the very low tech springs. Maintaining them is paramount if you want your door to operate smoothly and efficiently and if you want to prevent them from snapping prematurely and having to be replaced.

Garage Door Springs: A Closer Look

Your garage door is a marvel of efficiency with multiple components all working together harmoniously to get you in and out of the house quickly and quietly. But like any precision instrument you need to pay attention to the not-so-obvious things in order to ensure the entire mechanism continues to work as intended. Nothing is more important to the proper functioning of the door than the torsion and extension springs. Here’s a quick overview.

• Torsion Springs - Next time you’re in the garage stand facing the garage door and look up. You see that round steel coil attached to the wall above the door? That’s the torsion spring. Older doors used only a single large spring. But when that would snap the door would come crashing down. So new designs incorporate 2 springs. When one of them snaps the door won’t come crashing down on you. But it won’t work the way it was designed to either and you’ll need to call for garage door repair in Loveland (or wherever you are) pronto.
• Extension Springs - If your garage door doesn’t use torsion springs it uses extension springs. These can be found running from the door across the ceiling toward the back of the garage above the tracks. There are 2 extension springs. One above each track. Like torsion springs, extension springs store massive amounts of energy so you don’t want to be anywhere near one when it snaps. And it will, if it is not properly maintained. Once one of your extension springs snaps the door will begin to hang crooked, shake and rattle while opening and closing and ultimately fail completely.

What Constitutes Garage Door Spring Maintenance?

Garage door spring maintenance isn’t rocket science. And that’s a good thing because it means that it is affordable and can be done quickly by one of our highly trained technicians. Proper garage door spring maintenance will help stave off the need for much more expensive repair and replacement down the road. Here are a few maintenance considerations to keep in mind:

• Cycles - A garage door cycle consists of one up and down motion of the door. Most garage door springs are rated to 10,000 cycles. So if you use your garage door twice a day on average that’s 5,000 days or more than 13.5 years. The older the door is the more cycles it’s been through and the more important it is that the springs are properly maintained.
• The environment - The area around Boulder has some of the most spectacular scenery in the US. But along with natural beauty comes natural hazards like dust storms, bone chilling cold, snow, flooding and a rash of other elements that can all spell trouble for your torsion or extension springs. Making sure your springs are always clean and well lubricated is essential.
• Performance - Whenever one of our technicians comes by to check on the health of your springs they’ll do a balance test. In this test they disconnect the motor and open the door manually to about waist high. They then let go of the door and watch what happens. If the door is properly balanced it should stay put. If it’s not it will rise or close. Should this happen it’s a sign the springs need to be replaced.

If you don’t engage in regular maintenance of the springs it’s not a matter of if you’ll need to fix the garage door, but when. The longer the lapses between maintenance calls the sooner you’ll need to call for Broomfield garage door repair.

Conclusion

When their door isn’t performing as expected homeowners often assume they need garage door opener repair. But if it’s been some time since the garage door springs had a maintenance checkup it’s just as likely that they are the source of the garage door dysfunction. If you let the maintenance on your garage door springs lapse you’ll wind up having to foot the bill for expensive repairs sooner rather than later. Call A Better Garage Door to learn more.