Heating garage offers multiple solutions for North Chicago winter

It gets cold in North Chicago during the winter. No doubt that will be the case this winter, too. And, when it’s cold outside, unless your garage is heated, it’s darn cold in your garage, too.

The solution to a cold garage in winter is to heat your garage. The comfort associated with a heated garage is not the only reason you should consider heating your garage. In fact, there are several advantages to a heated garage that go beyond comfort.

Your car will love your heated garage: The oil thickens in your car in winter. This puts an additional burden on your car’s starting system. The battery needs more than its usual juice; it needs enough juice to turn over an engine with frosty sludge inside. A heated garage will keep the oil warmer and, as far as the battery and starter are concerned, it might as well be the middle of a North Chicago summer when you go to start your car. Your snowblower will also start better in a heated garage.
Your garage door and garage door opener will love your heated garage: Winter plays havoc on garage door parts and the garage door opener. Parts freeze. The change from warm to cold will cause parts to expand and contract.
Items you store in the garage will love your heated garage: Not everything you customarily keep in garage is conducive to extreme-cold temperatures. If the garage isn’t heated, you would do well to move these items, such as liquids – paints, stains, garden items – into the house.
You’ll love your heated garage: Go out to work on a project in the garage in the winter and, if it isn’t heated, you’d better bundle up. Remember – LAYERS!!! But, if you have a heated garage, you can go out there wearing the same clothes you wore inside he house.
Your Man Cave will love your heated garage: If you’ve turned your garage into a Man Cave, a heated garage is essential, assuming you want to use the garage in the winter, too. Kick back on the sofa and enjoy some suds while watching a football, basketball or hockey game, and you’ll be in the lap of luxury.

The point is that a heat transforms your North Chicago garage into another room for your home in the winter.

Things to consider when heating your garage:

• Install a safe, approved and properly sized heating unit
• Install the heating system properly so fumes from your car engine can’t get into the house
• Ensure that the walls and garage door are insulated (will go a long way towards keeping the heating bill down).

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.