Even Rudolph’s red-nose won’t help if Santa’s garage door won’t open

We all know about Santa’s sleigh – how it’s pulled by eight magic reindeer (and another with a shiny bright nose). But where does Santa keep his sleigh when he isn’t circumventing the globe distributing toys for good little girls and boys?

The simple answer is, ‘In the garage.’ 

Of course, Santa’s garage is at the North Pole. This makes it a very unique garage, indeed. Not only is it likely to be the only garage in the neighborhood, but it also needs to be a garage made of sturdy stuff. It’s unlikely that Santa would settle for 2X4 wall studs. With the kind of winds they experience up at the pole, 2X10 is probably a much better idea.

The roof needs to withstand the weight of A LOT of snow. In fact, it’s likely that the wood studs of his garage are backed up by heavy I-beams. But what about the garage door?

Santa’s garage door better open

Santa’s garage door doesn’t get as much of a workout as your garage door. His garage door only goes up and down twice each year: once when he goes out to deliver toys and once when the job is done and he comes home. But your garage door doesn’t face the kind of climatic punishment his garage door sees.

In the summer, the North Pole experiences a balmy 32-degrees Fahrenheit. But, in the winter, the annual mean temperature at the Pole is minus-40-degrees Fahrenheit. Lubrication is essential to keep moisture from frosting up and locking the hinges of Santa’s garage door in place.

Maintenance to ensure that the garage door opener operates at its peak performance is equally crucial. The springs, the rollers, the rails, the gears: everything has to work properly to avoid that tragic event on Dec. 24 where Santa’s garage door won’t open.

No doubt, Santa doesn’t neglect the maintenance of his garage door. He understands the crucial role his garage door plays in ensuring that children around the world will find toys under the Christmas tree Christmas morning.

Do Twin Lakes homeowners know about garage door maintenance?

Most of us know how important it is to maintain our cars. We know that, if we don’t, you’re liable to find us on the side of the road somewhere waiting for a tow truck. We know about maintaining the furnace and air conditioners in our homes lest we find ourselves too hot or too cold. We maintain our roofs so that moisture doesn’t get in and eat away at the sub-roof while spreading water damage below. But do Twin Lakes homeowners know about garage door maintenance?

Mechanical devices require maintenance. Most of the time, they’re made of materials that can rust, stretch, crack and break. They have parts that often rub together. They have motors that shown the strain of their efforts over time. All of these factors apply to the garage door and garage door opener in your Twin Lakes garage.

And yet, garage doors and garage door openers are among the most neglected mechanical devices in our lives. Considering that we use them almost daily, this doesn’t make a lot of sense.

When you use your garage door it usually means that the garage door opener is required to lift the garage door so you can get out and bring it back down after you return. That means that, in most days, your garage door makes a minimum of four trips up and down. If you came and went each day for a year, your garage door will go up, and come back down, 1,460 times.

That’s quite a workout for the garage door opener and the mechanical parts of your garage door. It’s a testament to the quality construction and design of most garage doors and garage door openers. But, eventually, even the best garage doors and garage door openers are going to breakdown.

The likelihood that your garage door or garage door opener will breakdown generally depends on how well you maintain these neglected mechanical devices. But there’s more to it than simply when they will breakdown; it’s also a question of performance in the meantime.

In other words, even if your garage door hasn’t broken yet, it probably isn’t going up as quickly and efficiently as it did before. Over time, the process of raising and lowering your garage door will also get quieter. In the meantime, you’re also putting increased stress on parts of the garage door and garage door opener.

All that extra strain required to raise and lower the garage door will cause the motor of the garage door opener to work harder and heat up more in the process.

Garage door maintenance is not something you have to do twice a week. In fact, once a year is probably good enough. It’s an extremely cost-effective way to extend the life and performance of the garage door and garage door opener in your Twin Lakes garage.

Leave your Fox Lake garage spring repair to a garage door technician

Imagine it’s a sunny Fox Lake morning as you press the button to open the garage door and rest a moment as it begins to rise. Suddenly, something seems wrong. The door seems as though it’s struggling. Then it stops and slips back a little. That’s definitely not right.

Did the garage door opener break? Is there some kind of belt or chain that broke?

You could slide under the door to see what the problem is but definitely not in these clothes and, besides, what would your Fox Lake neighbors think if they saw you. So, you go through the front door of the house and enter the garage from the interior door where the garage attaches to the house.

Maybe if you had spent more time looking at the mechanism, you’d know what to look for. But, from what you can see, everything seems fine. “Oh well,” you say to yourself. “Guess I’d better call a garage door technician to take a look.”

The technician comes out, walks in the garage, looks up at the inner works of your garage door and says, “Your spring is broken.”

“It’s that obvious?” you ask.

“Well, if you look at garage doors every day …”

The garage door spring is as large as 2-1/2” in diameter and up to 40” long. It’s a heavy spring that takes the weight off the load when raising and lowering the garage door. When the spring is properly installed and unbroken, you can lift the garage door relatively easily by hand. But, when the spring is broken, it’s a real strain to raise the garage door and possibly more than you can handle.

In some cases there are two springs. One spring or two, this is not a job for the Do-It-Yourselfer. The tension in a garage door spring is immense. If done improperly, the spring could shoot out during removal or installation and someone can be seriously injured or even killed.

In other words, if you want it done right, and you want it done safely, you needed to call a garage door technician to your Fox Lake home for this job.

Antioch winter weather will test your garage door and garage door opener

When did you last perform maintenance on your Antioch garage door? Have you ever had maintenance performed on your Antioch garage door? If you’re like most people, you probably fit in the latter category of people who have never had maintenance performed on their garage door.

Garage door maintenance is crucial to extending the life of your garage door, garage door opener and components. This makes all-the-more sense when winter rolls into Antioch.

Winter will test your garage door, garage door opener and various components. Whatever grease is in the bearings that guide the door panels up and down in the rails will thicken as the weather gets colder. There should be an ample amount of grease but that isn’t always the case. In fact, more often than not, it isn’t the case.

When the doors aren’t maintained, the rollers don’t roll as smoothly. The doors will bind up and stick. The degree to which the garage door drags as it moves up and down may seem almost imperceptible to the naked eye, but you can believe its effects are very real.

When the garage door doesn’t move up and down as easily it puts more strain on the motor of the garage door opener. If you could put your hand on the motor, and compare to when the door moved smoother, you might notice that the motor is getting hotter as it drives the door up and down without proper maintenance.

The rollers in the rails will also get hotter as they move up and down in their channels. Heat is not the friend of moving parts that come into contact.

As the lack of maintenance takes its toll, metal parts will strain and twist as they bear the extra burden of a garage door that is not as smooth as the day it was installed.

Maintenance of your Antioch garage door and garage door opener reduces the strain. Your garage door will last longer needing fewer repairs. More than that, it will continue to run smoother, quieter and operate with the speed you’re used to.

Overhead doors on trucks and trailers require the same care as garage doors

Garage door repair and maintenance services usually come to your home or office to repair or maintain your garage door. But what if the overhead door that you need to repair or maintain isn’t on your home or office garage? What if your overhead door is a mobile door on the backside of your trailer?

The overhead doors that roll up in the back of a truck or trailer are very similar to the garage door in a garage. Most of the parts are the same. The required experience and expertise to maintain and repair an overhead door in the back of a truck or trailer is quite similar.

If the overhead door in the back of your truck or trailer breaks down, you have a problem. Business can come to a screeching halt until the overhead door is fixed. This makes access to an overhead repair service that can respond quickly imperative. It also makes timely overhead door maintenance crucial.

Maintenance of the overhead door on the back of your truck or trailer will go a long way towards keeping you on the road and in service.

Imagine if your overhead door gets stuck in the upright position. What will you do with valuable equipment and merchandise in the back of the truck or trailer? How will you protect it?

What if the overhead door gets stuck in the closed position? How will you access equipment and merchandise in the back of the truck or trailer?

Most often, an overhead door in the back or a truck or trailer will break while in use. What if it collapses as you’re opening or closing the overhead door? What if the spring breaks and parts go shooting off the overhead door mechanism like bullets? When an overhead door breaks, someone could get hurt. That someone could be you. Embarrassingly, it could also be someone else.

Rather than wait until you require repairs, it’s a good idea to find an overhead door company that can maintain and repair the overhead door on the back of your truck or trailer before you have an emergency.

Maintenance is critical for overhead doors at your Crystal Lake business

Folks in Crystal Lake generally have one or two garage doors to maintain, though many neglect that maintenance until the need for maintenance turns to the need for repairs or replacement. You, on the other hand, have a warehouse of overhead doors to maintain. You can’t afford to allow yourself to fall behind maintaining all those overhead doors.

You understand that maintenance is inexpensive insurance to keep your overhead doors operating properly.

When an overhead door breaks down, it’s not just a matter of the cost of repair or replacement; it’s also a question of losing access to that particular loading dock. If the overhead door breaks in the upright position, you may also have to board up the opening until repairs to the overhead door are implemented.

Your overhead doors see a lot more use, and receive a lot more abuse than the garage door at the Crystal Lake home of someone nearby. Forklifts are liable to run skids into the rails for the overhead doors. There’s more ‘stuff’ in the air with your loading docks than folks generally see in the garages at their homes. The doors themselves will experience strikes from forklifts and other equipment.

Keeping the doors clean and properly lubricated is essential and a greater challenge with all that activity going on in your loading docks. And there are dollars depending on the continued smooth operation of your overhead doors.

The best way to ensure the continued smooth operation of your overhead doors is to establish a relationship with professionals dedicated to servicing overhead doors. You want someone who will be there when you need them, will have the tools, materials and equipment needed to maintain and repair your overhead doors properly, and will have the knowledge and experience to expeditiously do the job right.

On the other hand, you could wait until you have a problem and then scramble to find someone to help with your overhead doors. There are plenty of companies who service the Crystal Lake area. Unfortunately, they’re not all the same. Some are more experienced and have better reputations than others. It’s more difficult to determine the difference when you’re scrambling to find someone in an emergency.

Where are those leaves in your Wilmot garage coming from? How’s the weather stripping under your garage door?

Leaves on the concrete floor of your Wilmot garage can cause a slip hazard if they’re wet. Besides, when they’re wet, they’re so difficult to sweep up. You sweep but they stick to the floor and slide under the broom. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could keep them out of the garage?

As it turns out, for the most part, you can. Of course, when the garage door is wide open, the wind blowing through Wilmot is apt to blow leaves into your garage. But what about the leaves that seem to come in when the garage door is closed?

A garage door is designed to take a weather strip at the bottom so that the door can close tightly. There are a few designs of rubber stripping for the bottom of a garage door. In some cases, the weather strip is simply a flat strip of rubber with a lip on the outside. It’s about a quarter-inch thick and runs the length of the door. The lip is tipped downward so that, when the garage door closes, it is sure to push against the concrete and create a seal.

Other types are more effective. They’re generally the same but with different mounting methods. They employ what is essentially a tube of rubber at the bottom of the door. The tube is about an inch-or-so deep. Running from side to side at the bottom of the garage door, when the garage door comes down, the tube is pushed down onto the concrete creating an effective seal.

As with things rubber, the gasket at the bottom of your garage door will harden over time. Eventually, the hardened rubber is liable to crack. Cracks will grow and, eventually, pieces will break off. In the process, the integrity of the seal at the bottom of your Wilmot garage door will be lost.

A visual inspection of your garage door weather stripping will generally expose any problems. Check for cracks, breaks and hardness. Also, make sure the garage door is adjusted correctly so that the gasket fully engages with the concrete. Your probably want to check the gasket around the sides and top of your garage door, too. They help to seal out the elements.

Another indication of how your garage door weather stripping is doing is when you find leaves or water inside your garage. The weather in Wilmot is often brutal, especially with winter coming. 

Should you insulate your Lake Geneva garage door?

With the passing of Labor Day, the unofficial end of summer has passed. Inevitably, temperatures will grow colder and colder. You may not want to dwell on this fact too long just yet, but it’s coming. Though you can’t stop the approach of another Lake Geneva winter, you can take steps to mitigate the effects of winter.

One thing you can do is to insulate your Lake Geneva garage. If you keep your car in the garage, this will help make it easier for the car to start on those cold winter days while protecting the car a bit from the elements.

Maybe your garage is already insulated. But is the garage door insulated? If the garage isn’t insulated, and you decide it’s time to insulate your garage, don’t forget the garage door.

Garage doors are often made of lightweight material so the garage door opener doesn’t have too much trouble opening and closing the garage door, whether that describes you or a mechanical device at the ceiling of the garage. Thankfully, they make materials to insulate your garage door that are lightweight, too.

Insulating the garage door helps to complete the process of keeping out the cold. Adding a heater to the garage can make the environment in the garage hospitable throughout some of the coldest days of winter. And the insulation will help to keep the cost of heating the garage to a minimum.

Insulation also has a sound deadening effect. But, if you only have insulation in the walls of the garage the garage door is the weak link in your effort to ward off the cold and sound from outside the garage (more accurately, keep the heat from escaping from the garage).

It’s also important that the weather stripping around the garage is in good shape. The heat will seep out wherever it can. If the weather stripping is porous, the heat will find the leaks.

One question before you start insulating your garage door is to consider the condition of your garage door. Is the door 10-years or more old? Can you see light in the daytime coming through the gaps between the garage door panels? If so, there air will pass through those gaps, too.

If your Lake Geneva garage door is too old, or in bad condition, it may not make sense to insulate the garage door. You might be better off simply replacing the garage door.

11 reasons your Woodstock garage door isn’t opening or closing

You’re chatting with a friend about making plans as you pull in the driveway of your Woodstock home. Without really thinking about it, you open the app on your phone that controls the garage door and hit the button that will start it rising before you even reach it. In fact, you’ve timed this pantomime to the point that you can just keep on rolling right on into the garage.

Today, however, you have to hit the brakes hard as you very nearly drive right into the garage door. ‘WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED?!!!’

It’s not what happened; it’s what didn’t happen. The garage door did not go up when you pushed the button. You were planning to run in and change before driving over to The Woodstock Square to meet your friend for coffee at Ethereal Confections. But you hit the button again and again and still it sits, not budging at all.

You don’t have time for this. You leave the car in the driveway and go around to the front door. You’ll have to worry about the garage door later. Actually, you’ll probably need to worry about the garage door opener later.

There are a number of reasons that your garage door isn’t opening. Here is a list of 11 possibilities that could explain the problem:

• Somehow, the plug is unplugged and there’s no power
• The limit setting requires adjustment
• The door is off one or both of its tracks
• A torsion spring is broken (without it, the door weighs too much for the opener to open)
• There’s a problem with your remote control or app
• A cable has snapped or is loose
• The disconnect is engaged
• The door is locked
• There is something in the way of the door so it won’t open
• The assembly requires a sensitivity adjustment
• The photoelectric sensor is broken or blocked

That’s quite a list of possible problems. Your best bet is to go through the front door and, if you have time, call a qualified garage door technician before you go meet your friend for dinner. Better garage door repair services offer emergency calls. Or, if it can wait, they’ll come out the next day and put the garage door opener, on your Woodstock garage, back in working order.

Grayslake garage door starts to open the closes indicates possible broken garage door spring

You get the feeling the garage door on your Grayslake home is messing with you. You push the button on your ap to open the garage door and it begins to rise. Bt then, as though you can hear the mechanism laughing at you, it reverses course and goes back down. This is not funny. It’s infuriating, especially if you have an appointment and don’t have time for fun and games.

You press the button again and, maybe it opens. Then again, maybe it does the same thing over again. What would cause the garage door opener to behave so rudely? Before you jump to the conclusion that your Grayslake garage door is possessed, there is a logical explanation.

If your garage door begins to open but then closes instead, the likely culprit is the spring above the door. The spring is designed to help you or the garage door opener to open the garage door by reducing the amount of weight that needs to be lifted. But if the spring is broken or worn, it can loose its strength. More and more weight is left for you or the garage door opener to handle.

This can trigger a problem with the garage door opener. You’ll notice this problem when the garage door begins to open and then closes again.

The first question to ask is the age of the spring above the garage door. If it’s more than three or four years old, it’s possible that the spring is worn. You might be worn too if you were called upon, repeatedly, to carry that kind of weight. Then again, if the door was properly installed in the first place, you may get considerably more years out of your garage door spring.

Whether the garage door spring is a little long in the tooth or not, it’s possible that the spring is broken. While some broken garage door springs are obvious, that’s not always the case; you may want to call in a garage door technician to inspect your garage door spring.

If you do have a worn or broken garage door spring, you definitely want a trained professional to replace the garage door spring. Someone choosing to replace their own garage door spring would want to have someone on hand to call the Grayslake EMTs when an accident happens. Considering the amount of energy contained in a garage door spring, even a broken or worn spring, the likelihood of injury or death is very real. This is not a DIY project. Be safe, call the pros. 

What to do when you back into your Crystal Lake garage door

It takes a few seconds for it to sink in, for you to realize it can’t be undone. You’ve backed into the garage door of your Crystal Lake home and the question now is how much damage was done and what to do next?

The first consideration, of course, is whether everyone is okay. This may or may not include your psychological disposition at the moment. The next question is whether you can or should move the car.

Depending on how much damage you’ve done, parts of the garage door could come crashing down if you move the car. You should carefully check the rollers to ensure they’re still in their tracks. Check the door panels to make sure they’re still connected. From a distance, look at the spring(s) to ensure they’re safely connected (those springs have enough strength to seriously injure or kill someone). You also want to check that the garage door opener is still securely mounted and won’t fall on your or the car.

Additionally, you may want to take a photo or two for the insurance company before you move the car away from your Crystal Lake garage door.

If you’re not sure it’s safe to move the car, don’t. Call in garage door repair professionals to make that call and to safely move the vehicle.

Now, assuming you’ve called your insurance provider (auto/home/both?), it’s time to consider securing the garage and repairing the garage door.

Your garage door specialist may need to order panels and other parts to repair the garage door. This means that they won’t, necessarily, be able to repair the garage door immediately. In that case, it’s a question of securing the garage door until they can.

If there wasn’t too much damage done, it’s possible that the damaged garage door can adequately secure the garage until repairs are done. But, if too much damage was done, the garage door specialist may need to construct a plywood structure to temporary secure the garage. In either case, you may not be able to use the garage door until repairs are done.

Repairs may include replacing the entire Crystal Lake garage door. If this is the case, hopefully, your garage door was older to begin with. In either case, trust your insurance agent to help with the financial aspects of the incident. Trust your garage door technician to straighten out the garage door.

Oh, and don’t feel too bad about it; you’re not the first person to back into their garage door.

Garage doors offer aesthetic opportunities to increase curb appeal for Wonder Lake homeowners

This garage door in Wonder Lake offers an awesome
painted scene as the homeowners have made the most
of their flush garage door.

Garage doors are 7- or 8-feet high and 9- to 18-feet wide. Some Wonder Lake garages have two garage doors. That’s quite a bit of space and an opportunity for aesthetic enhancement and great curb appeal. But many owners of garages haven’t taken advantage of those opportunities.

Garage doors come in different styles and made of different materials. There are flush garage doors that are designed to look like nothing more than a section of wall. There are other garage doors with framed panels. As for materials, some garages are wood, some are metal, and some are fiberglass. The latter are often made to look like wood.

A common garage door size in Wonder Lake is 8X16. That garage door offers 128-square feet of space. A home with two 8X10 garage doors offers 160-square feet of aesthetic opportunity. Any improvement has the potential to make a significant improvement in a Wonder Lake home’s curb appeal.

The aesthetic approach to a garage door can range from stri

ving to make it fade into the background – to be as unnoticeable as possible – to making it stand out while making a statement.

The Invisible Garage Door: this is the concept that the garage door should go as unnoticed as possible. Painting it the same color as the surrounding walls is the best way to achieve this effect. If it’s a flush panel door it may still standout. For instance, if the wall around the door is brick, unless you can give the door the appearance of brick (difficult to pull off), you can paint it the same color as the brick but it won’t be the same.

These homeowners have stained their garage door. The
result is absolutely fantastic.

If the walls have lap siding, once again, matching the walls will be difficult. Staying with the same color is probably the closest you’ll come to making the garage door disappear.

The Stand-Out Garage Door: rather than trying to hide the garage door, this is where you try to make the most of the garage door – to make it stand-out from the wall around it. Here, the options fall into two basic categories: accentuating the doors basic style or something more creative.

Accentuating the garage doors basic style might mean painting the framing on the panels and/or the panels themselves. It could mean staining a wooden garage door or painting a metal or fiberglass garage door to appear as though it’s stained wood.

Another option is to paint a scene or design on a garage door. In this case, a flush garage door may work best. The surface of the garage door is the canvas where you can do your magic.

Whatever you do to your Wonder Lake garage door, any improvement will improve your home’s curb appeal. That’s particularly important if you’re selling your home but nice even if you’re not leaving.

Protect Hainesville garage door weather stripping and it will protect your garage and possessions

Those shingles on the roof of your garage are there to keep the water out. They protect everything inside. The weather stripping around your Hainesville garage door is there for the same reason. If you keep the weather stripping in good shape it will help keep your garage in good shape, as well as everything you keep inside the garage.

The weather stripping is generally made of rubber and rubber is a petroleum product. That means there is oil inside the rubber. The sun, heat and cold speed the process by which the oil is dried out of the rubber. Overtime, and as a result, the rubber will shrink and crack. In time, the deterioration will be so complete that the rubber will crumble.

As the rubber deteriorates, water gains access. In the winter, this means that thawing snow and ice come through to do their damage to things inside. In the summer, particularly a monsoon-like summer such as this, the rainwater can get past the rubber weather stripping as it deteriorates.

One part of your Hainesville that you really want to protect is the bottom plate of the walls. Hopefully, this is raised from the floor, particularly since many garages are built today with a constant downward pitch toward the front of the garage. But, if the water has a chance to get into the wood around the walls of your garage it can cause the wood to rot and mold.

Items that you keep in garage can also suffer from rainwater that gets inside the garage. What do you keep in the garage? Can water damage it? These are good questions, particularly if your garage door weather strip is showing signs of wear.

If your Hainesville garage door weather strip is showing signs of wear, moving things off the floor is a temporary solution. The real answer is to replace the weather stripping around the door. And don’t wait too long. This is one wet Hainesville summer.

Sweep the cobwebs from that Gurnee garage door

And some lubrication and maintenance wouldn’t hurt

You might want to wipe the cobwebs off your Gurnee
garage door. Having a garage door technician come in
and take a look - do a little maintenance - isn't a bad
idea either.

Garage doors are among the most neglected mechanical devices in your Gurnee home. It’s not that folks intend to neglect them; it just works out that way.

It’s actually a tribute to garage doors and garage door openers that they can work so well, for so long, when maintenance is the farthest thing from their owners’ minds. For many people, in Gurnee or otherwise, their garage doors have never received any maintenance. And yet those garage doors still go up and down on demand.

The problem is that, reliable as they are, as with anything mechanical, the time will come when something will break. Even more inevitable is that imperceptible decay in the efficiency of their operation.

From day to day, you don’t notice that the garage door is making more noise than it used to - that it takes longer for the garage door to go up and down. If it happened all at once, you’d notice immediately. But the change is incremental and minute. How can you tell the difference when the sound only goes up by the fraction of a decibel at a time or it takes a fraction of a second longer to raise and lower the door than it did yesterday?

Maintenance will keep your Gurnee garage door and garage opener operating at their peak performance longer. It will help to stave off that inevitable day when parts break and require repair or replacement. In the process, maintenance is a highly-cost-effective way of saving money.

The day you need to replace your garage door, garage door opener, or parts of either of these mechanical devices, is the day you have to open your wallet wider than you wanted or needed. Garage door maintenance – garage door opener maintenance – are the keys to a long and efficient life for your Gurnee garage door and garage door opener. That maintenance includes using the proper lubricants strategically applied.

Is your Racine garage door opener sick or tired?

You can’t expect your Racine garage door opener to raise and lower your garage door with such frequency without it getting a bit worn out by the process. If you go in and out of your garage only once each day of the year, that’s 365 times that the garage door opener will open the door and an equal number of times that it will close the garage door.

Chances are, however, that, while there may be days when you don’t use the garage door, those days are infrequent. Instead, if you’re like most of your Racine neighbors, you probably use the garage door more often than once a day.

Think about it this way; you usually use the garage door five or six days of the week, leaving and returning from work. That means that you use the garage door twice on those days. If you work 250 days out of the year, assuming you have weekends off, you’ll still bring the garage door up and down 500 times.

What about weekends? How often do you go to the store, raising and lowering the garage door to get the car out of the garage? And then you raise and lower the garage door when you return. How about all the times you cut the grass or snow blow the driveway? How about when you garden or rake the leaves? How about all the times you take the recyclables out to the curb? And then there are all those incidental occasions when you have reason to use the garage door opener.

It’s not hard to imagine that your garage door opener will go up and down 1,000 times each year or more. Over a five-year period, that’s 5,000 times. A single-car garage door weighs about 125 pounds. If it’s insulated, the weight can be closer to 150 pounds.

Most folks in Racine have two-and-a-half-sized garages with double-wide doors (16-feet). If made of steel, those doors can weigh about 200 pounds without the insulation. With insulation, they’re often closer to 225 or more pounds.

Garage door openers commonly have ½-horsepower motors. Fortunately, the garage door comes with heavy-duty springs that help to carry much of the load. But we’re still expecting a lot from that garage door opener. They do an admirable job but, over time, it’s inevitable that they grow a little tired. They can get sick, too.

Garage door opener parts can break. Adjustments can slide out of adjustment.

The point is that, if your Racine garage door is getting a little long in the tooth, you may want to have it checked out by a qualified garage door technician. They can identify anything ailing your garage door opener and they can give a boost of energy to many tired garage door openers.

Spring is time for Antioch garage door maintenance

Spring has finally come to Antioch and residents are making the most of the opportunity; they’re out in the garden, they’re cleaning the house, they’re cleaning the garage. Speaking of cleaning your Antioch garage, this is also a good time for a little garage door maintenance.

Garage door maintenance is one of the most overlooked processes among homeowners. Generally, they don’t think much about the garage door until something goes wrong – until the door is crooked, is stuck or won’t open at all. They don’t seem to notice that, overtime, the garage door operates slower and slower while making more and more noise in the process.

Garage door maintenance is the remedy for most of what ails a troubled garage door. Lubrication, in the right places, will keep the garage door opening and closing smoothly, efficiently and quietly. Without lubrication, rust invades the hinges and other parts of the garage door system. It wears at those parts of the garage. In the process, it also makes the garage door opener work harder.

A garage door technician knows all the spots where lubrication is required and what kind of lubrication goes where. They know how the garage door is supposed to operate and will notice if the door isn’t working at its peak performance. They’ll recognize signs of wear and damage.

A garage door technician will ensure that the rollers are gliding smoothly up and down in the tracks where they belong. They’ll know when something is bent or broken. They’ll check the garage door opener and controls to see that they’re in proper working order.

Some homeowners are tempted to perform maintenance on their own garage doors. That’s okay as long as there is nothing seriously wrong; it’s important to remember that the garage door is heavier than it looks and there is enough tension on the springs to seriously injure someone, or worse, if they try to fix the garage door themselves.

The most important thing is that the pros won’t miss spots that require lubrication and they have the experience and expertise to see issues before they become problems. A garage door technician will keep the garage door working at its best while you can focus on the gardening and cleaning of your Antioch home. 

Is it time to replace your Zion garage door?

If you take care of the garage door on your Zion garage, performing proper maintenance about once each year, that garage door should last you a good long time. If not, you may find yourself needing a new garage door sooner than you expected, and certainly sooner than you wanted.

Even if you do take care of your garage door, there may be a time when you need, or want, to install a new garage door. If you simply decide it’s time for a change, ‘when’ to install a new garage door is a subjective question. But, if the garage door is past its prime and its condition dictates that you need a new garage door on your Zion garage, the time to do so is more objective. There are particular issues that would indicate it’s time for a new garage door.

So, when do you really need to replace the garage door and how can you tell? Here are several issues to consider:

• Operation: This is the most obvious question. How does your garage door operate, which you can break down into several other categories, such as:
• Speed: Is the garage door going up and down at the same rate of speed as it did when it was new? This may be difficult to notice overtime as the door is likely to slow down a little at a time. But, if you check the speed and try to remember how the door worked when new you’ll probably be able to determine if the speed has changed.
• Noise: Is the garage door considerably louder than it used to be. Once again, the noise has probably increased incrementally but you should be able to tell the difference if you try.
• Safety: Is the garage door in a condition where someone could be injured, or worse? Is it so likely to come off the rails that it might fall on the car and cause damage? Look to see that it is closing all the way, that the rollers are staying in the rails and that the springs are not broken.
• Security: Is the garage door closing properly to the degree that it is not easily breeched. One of the primary functions of the garage door is to keep the unwanted out. The unwanted includes animals that might be looking for a home as well as people who are looking for something to steal.
• Appearance: This is more of a subjective question again. If the garage door looks like heck it’s not very appealing in general. If you’re thinking about selling your Zion home, the appearance of the garage door is even more important and can play a major factor in the ability to find a buyer and how much they’re willing to pay.
• Technology: If your garage door is old enough you may not have the latest technology at your fingertips, such as a garage door you can operate with your smart phone, even when you’re not home.

Before you decide your garage door is due for replacement, you may want a garage door technician to look at the old garage door and see if it’s worth salvaging. With proper maintenance, once again, you can extend the life of your garage door.

Otherwise, it’s a matter of cost versus benefits, including the benefit of a new garage door on your Zion garage.

A quality garage door technician allows you to not worry about your garage door

From your garage door opener simply not working, to that noise that reminds you entirely too much of nails on a chalkboard when it opens, to broken weather sealant or rust formations along the tracks we’ve all encountered some kind of irritation or inconvenience when dealing with what seems to be such an insignificant aspect of our homes.

In other words, not many of us put much thought into our garage doors, how they work, how they’re made or on keeping them in working conditions, although many of us notice the rust forming underneath our vehicle the rust forming along our garage door tracks due to lack of lubrication is far from our minds. Although rust can add a warm, almost homely appeal when used in decor, when present it affects the efficiency of your garage door.

Any good technician knows this and will have thoroughly lubricated your garage door tracks upon installation. That being said, not all technicians are aware that all metal materials on your garage door need such attention, including but not limited to the spring located above the door, this means that even if you have plastic rollers there is still a need for lubrication. Lubrication is necessary to keep your garage door operable over time, but it is only one of the things you need to take into consideration when thinking about keeping up with garage door maintenance.

Here are just a few examples of what can go wrong when your door is not properly maintained:

• Squeaky, grinding noises when opening
• Door doesn’t seal when closed or close all the way
• Broken weather sealant
• Garage door openers simply not connecting or working
• Unaligned Tracks
• Broken springs
• Broken cables

And lastly, most common, but not least …

• Rust

Quality garage door technicians take the hassle of getting your car home safely and securely into your garage easier and far less stressful. They will provide quick and efficient service that keeps your garage door in good condition while extending its life.

Are you using your garage to its full potential?

Your garage is full of potential. Right off the bat it has the potential as a warm and protected place to park your car. This is generally considered the primary role of a garage. Of course, a garage also has the potential as a storage area.

Unfortunately, as a storage area, garages often get out of hand. Rather than neatly, optimized storage, ‘stuff’ runs amok in many garages. Garages will have so much ‘stuff’ haphazardly dumped across the floor that there often isn’t any room left for the car.

Garages are often the haven for lawn and snow-removal equipment. Once again, this can challenge the car for space in the garage.

There are two, or three, solutions for a garage that has turned into a magnet for ‘stuff’ until the garage is overflowing. One solution is to create an orderly system of storing ‘stuff’ in the garage. This usually includes solid and well-thought-out shelving. Another solution is to build a shed.

A shed is a great place to keep the lawn and snow-removal equipment, as well as gardening and other equipment. But some people have such a problem with random ‘stuff’ that the ‘stuff’ in the garage soon finds its way into the shed, too. Next thing they know, the shed is bulging with ‘stuff’ too.

The final solution is to simply accept the ‘stuff’ as victorious over the car in its battle for use of space in the garage.

Assuming someone doesn’t want to surrender the garage to the ‘stuff,’ they may want to explore the potential of the garage further. Once the ‘stuff’ is cleared away into orderly storage, they can turn the garage into a ‘man-cave’ or a ‘she-shed.’ Here, the options are almost endless.

If they want to use the garage in these capacities year round, they’ll probably want to heat and cool the garage. They can connect heating/cooling vents to the garage, assuming the heating/cooling system has the capacity for the garage (they should check with an HVAC contractor first). However, if the car or other gasoline-fired engines will run in the garage, or they’ll use the garage for painting or other processes where fumes are present, they probably don’t want a return vent that will carry the odors and gasses through the house.

If heating/cooling the garage, and even if they don’t, they may want to drywall the garage. If doing so, they should consider insulating the walls prior to applying the drywall. Once the drywall is installed and finished, it’s time to decorate.

Paint and/or paneling can be applied to the walls and ceiling. You can even paint the floor with special heavy-duty latex- or oil-based paints. Another option is specialized tile that can be applied to the garage floor.

From this point, the options are too many to list here. It’s really up to someone’s imagination.

Leave that crooked garage door to the professionals

Garage doors aren’t supposed to be crooked. It’s a bad sign when they are. But it’s a greater concern when the garage door is crooked in the up position than when closed.

If the door is crooked, there’s a good chance the door hit something causing the problem. Maybe a basketball was sitting in the door’s path when it came down. Something stopped one side of the door and, in the process, caused slack in the cable. With slack, the cable jumped over the cable drum.

A broken spring can also cause the garage door to go all crooked on you. You don’t want to trifle with a garage door spring. It’s a powerful spring that can cause serious injury, even death, if it gets away from you. Obviously, if there’s a problem with the

garage spring, you want to call in a professional.

When the cable comes off the cable drum you also want to call in a professional. It’s easier if the door is crooked down low but you still want a professional to fix the problem. That way it will be done right and safely.

If the door is crooked in its lowered position, a professional can probably get the cable back over the drum without too much trouble. But if the door is crooked in the open position, the professional will have to take the garage door apart, piece by piece.

If you try to fix a cable that has jumped over the cable drum while the door is in the open position, you’re liable to drop the door. It could fall on you. It could also fall on your car. In either case, when it falls, beyond the damage it could do to you or the car, it will probably do damage to itself.

The lesson is that, if your garage door is crooked, up or down, call a professional. They’ll fix it right and no one will get hurt in the process.

How often should you maintain your Lake Bluff garage door? How often do you use it?

When you consider the question, ‘How often should I maintain my Lake Bluff garage door?’ the answer is to ask another question: ‘How often do you use it?’ This is logical. The more often you use something mechanical the more wear and tear it will have. This principle applies to garage doors, too.

So, if you use your Lake Bluff garage door twice a day, that’s a pretty heavy amount of use and more frequent maintenance is critical. Of course, it’s possible that you use your garage door even more often than that. The frequency of performing maintenance should increase proportionately.

On the other hand, you may not use your garage door even twice a day. Maybe you don’t park your car in the garage and only use the door a couple times each week. Yes, you can get away with less frequent garage door maintenance. But, don’t make the mistake of thinking this means you shouldn’t maintain it. The question is simply about frequency.

Garage door maintenance – for that matter, garage door opener maintenance – is one of the most overlooked procedures when it comes to mechanical equipment around the house. Few people would allow the car to go three, four or more years without an oil change – the most basic form of automotive maintenance.

Some people have never performed maintenance on their Lake Bluff garage doors. As a general rule, having your garage door maintained once each year is the standard that garage door technicians and installers recommend. But, as mentioned above, if you use it heavily, you may want to increase the frequency of maintenance.

Maintenance includes lubricating the hinges, rails, rollers and other moving parts that come into contact with other parts. It also includes checking the adjustments so that the door is stopping all the way down, going all the way up and stopping if something, or someone, is in the way while the garage door is in operation. Maintenance will check all the springs, pulleys, chains, wiring and other parts of the door and the opener.

Without proper maintenance, your garage door may not break immediately, but you can expect it to slow down, make more noise and stand a greater risk of failure if it’s not maintained often enough. The garage door, and parts of the garage door, won’t last as long if you don’t maintain them.