Are your Lindenhurst garage door springs getting tired?

Spring just ended last week and though most of us here in Lindenhurst are happy to have the summer stretching out ahead of us, few of us are actually tired of spring. After all, spring is not a season to tire of. Unlike winter, which many of us are happy to put behind us, we generally enjoy spring.

While you’re not tired of spring, you may want to consider if your springs are tired. Which springs? The springs on your Lindenhurst garage door.

Garage door springs do get tired over time. They probably don’t care too much for winter either, since the winter brings extremes of cold that have a peculiar relationship with the metal of your garage door springs.

The cold makes metal contract. Think about when you get cold and draw back into your winter coat to huddle against the frigid temps. Your body is rigid. The same is true of your garage door springs. Winter makes them stiff.

Fortunately, as we all appreciatively know, winter has passed. In fact, spring has also passed. Those garage door springs have warmed up and relaxed, most likely, again. Most likely because the winter of 2021-22 was probably not their first winter.

How many winters have your garage door springs survived? How many times have they contracted with the winter cold and then warmed up again in the spring? These kinds of things strain metal parts, particularly metal parts that are designed to flex, like springs.

It’s reasonable to think of garage door springs as boosters. They take up most of the weight of a garage door. When you open the garage door by hand, you’ve probably noticed that it takes some effort to do so. Imagine what it would be like without those garage door springs.

If you had no garage door springs, you’d have to lift all that weight yourself. It would really take some effort. You’d get a workout lifting your garage door.

If it takes that much energy for you to lift the garage door by hand, think about that little box in the ceiling of your garage. Inside that box is a small motor. Many garage door openers have half or quarter horsepower motors. And yet they lift and lower your garage door day after day, again and again, winter, spring, summer, fall and back to winter again.

Imagine if you garage door assembly didn’t have springs to lift that garage door. What is certain is that you would need a much bigger motor in the garage door opener. And you’d need a much bigger box to put it in.

In the meantime, while that spring takes a lot of the load off your garage door opener, as your garage door springs get tired, more and more of that load is passed off to your garage door opener. This is why you want to consider the idea that your garage door springs may be getting tired.

In the meantime, enjoy the Lindenhurst summer ahead while you let a garage door technician check out your garage door springs.

Fishing is a great way to spend your time in Antioch but it’s also a technique thieves use to break into garages

It’s June and odds are pretty good the fish are biting in one of the lakes in and around Antioch. Why not get your pole and tackle, buy some bait and load ‘em in the boat and head to Blarney Island, Chain O’Lakes Boat Rental or another boat launch? 

While you’re out angling for some of that Lunker in Channel Lake, hopefully, no on is back at your Antioch home doing some fishing of another sort.

Why kind of fishing would they do at your house? Well, they might be fishing to get into your garage.

Fishing is the name of a technic some thieves will use to get into a garage. How does it work?

It’s really quite simple. The thief pushes on the top panel of your garage door and, if it gives way so there’s a gap between the top of the garage door and the garage door frame, the reach in with a wire or coat hanger and hook the emergency release cord on the garage. With a simple tug they are then able to manually raise the garage door.

Fortunately, there is a way to stop those thieves in their tracks; have your garage door adjusted properly.

When the garage door is properly adjusted the thieves find that they can’t push the top panel back to make room to hook the release cable. Adjusting the garage door properly, so thieves can’t go fishing to get into your garage, is a fairly simple procedure for a garage door technician.

Think about all the stuff you have in your garage: tools, toys (big boys and the kids’), access to the house. Fortunately, while you’re out fishing, they can’t get at the boat and your fishing tackle. But the potential losses are significant. 

Fishing, the kind you enjoy is a wonderful pastime. It’s relaxing and rewarding. You’re out in nature, breathing the fresh are and enjoying the peace and quiet out there on the lake. But thieves find their kind of fishing rewarding, too. Well, unless you have your garage door adjusted so they can’t land a prize in your Antioch home and at your expense.