We occasionally get this question while showing homeowners how to maintain their garage doors. I also get this question quite a bit from friends and family who know that I work on garage doors all of the time. Does it really hurt? The answer is simply yes. How much? Maybe over a period of one year, not much. But compounded for many years, neglecting your garage door takes years of life off of the door. Guaranteed. I have a recent example for you.
Garage Door Rollers are often overlooked
These are obviously cracked old garage door rollers. They still mostly do their job. This door was about 10-15 years old installed new with the home. The gal had her springs replaced twice during that time. With low quality springs, that sounds about right. Both times, she declined the other vendors replacing the rollers. The reason we were called out though? One of the rollers seized in the track, pulled the cable off, and jammed the garage door sideways. In this case, some regular maintenance would have prevented a service call and some minor damage to the door.
You can see that the home is relatively new. The door had no previous damage to it. This simple maintenance item is just one thing that doesn’t have to be replaced without need, but should at least be inspected for damage. A roller replacement is a special we do for less than $100. If we are already on site for something else the price is discounted immensely. A door repair like this, required new rollers, emergency service, reinforcement on damaged panels, and a couple of new hinges that were damaged. While the repair was still cheaper than a door replacement, a significant event like this will take years off of the life of the garage door and certainly put a cloud over your sunshine.
Rollers aren’t the only item that can wear out on garage doors. The cables should be inspected for damage. The spring should be lubricated with heavy weight motor oil. There’s nothing like lubricating those hinges either. Sure, it’s a maintenance check list item, but have a nice quiet door is always nice as well.
Don’t forget safety!
If I can convince you to do a regular maintenance and safety check just from the repair cost alone, awesome. However, the second part of that, the safety check to me is the most important thing. Garage doors can be dangerous. It is crucial to do regular safety checks on the opener to manufacture guidelines to check that your opener is operating in a safe manner around your vehicles and family.
I hope this post helped a little. Why do I recommend regular garage door maintenance? Safety of your family and long-term reliability and savings for the operation of your garage door. As always, we are here to help. If you have any questions, give us a call and can probably help you over the phone. If you need a hand and would like someone to do it for you, we can get out to you quickly, and we don’t charge extra for evenings and weekends when available if you’d like to be there while we do the work and you don’t have to take vacation time to do it. (740) 414-4500