Tracks are critical for trains and Fox Lake garage doors

Trains run on tracks (and they’re real hard to steer when they come off the tracks). Garage doors, such as the garage door on your Fox Lake garage, come off the tracks, too. And they’re impossible to steer when they come off the tracks.

On each side of a garage door is a channel – a track – that guides the garage door up and down when you want to open or close the garage door. The tracks not only guide the garage door, they keep it from falling out of the opening in the front of your garage.

While trains running through Fox Lake run on steel train wheels that rest on the tracks with lips that fit into the tracks, garage doors run on steel wheels that fit inside of the channel-shaped tracks. The wheels have bearings that allow them to spin as the garage door moves up and down. That’s essential since, without the bearings, the wheels would fight to turn and the garage door would drag up and down.

Instead of the 1/2hp motor on your garage door opener, you might need a 20hp motor to drag the garage up and down all the time. In other words, the track and wheels, with bearings, are designed to make it easy to raise and lower your garage door and to keep the garage door moving up and down easily.

Those bearings will last a long time. They’re designed to last a long time. But, even with superior design, they won’t remain in pristine condition forever. The wear and tear of raising and lowering the garage door again and again will take its toll.

Eventually, the bearings in the wheels that guide your garage door up and down will become so loose that the wheel will wobble uselessly or lockup so that the wheel no longer turns. In either case, this puts more strain on your garage door opener and all the parts that work together to raise and lower your garage door.

Is there anything you can do to extend the life of your garage door? Of course, there is. For starters, it pays to keep the tracks clear of debris.

Grass clippings, leaves, dirt, sand, gravel and other detritus can build up in the tracks. They limit the capacity of the wheels and tracks to smoothly and efficiently raise and lower the garage door. Using a broom to carefully brush the debris from the tracks will go a long way to keeping your Fox Lake garage door going up and down smoothly for the long haul.