Garage Door Repairs – How to Fix up your Garage Door without a Hassle

Learn the most common problems and solutions to garage door problems with this guide.

Garage door repair is an inevitable issue that arises from having an indoor garage that you use to store vehicles or other items. It is quite simply an unwanted pain and hassle when your garage door gets stuck and refuses to open or close. It can also cause other problems such as not being able to get your vehicle out of the garage to drive it to work, or not being able to get an open top vehicle back in the garage when it starts to rain! Either of these problems and many others can be a huge hassle, but the good news is that most problems with a troublesome garage door can be fixed quite easily with just a little bit of technical knowhow, that might spare you the time and expense of calling out a garage door repairs professional to fix the problem.

Checking the tracks

Garage doors work by traveling up or down along metal tracks which are attached to the inside of the garage wall. One of the first things to do when your door stops working is to examine the tracks: check the mounting brackets that hold the track in place to see if they are loose. If they are loose then tighten up the screws or bolts. Now take a look at the tracks themselves. If any parts seem bent, dented or knocked out of shape then it might be preventing the door from getting by. Try knocking them back into shape with a mallet. This will solve most problems with the tracks, but if are too badly damaged then they may need replacing. Another common problem is having some kind of blockage on the door tracks. Try cleaning the tracks with a normal household cleaning liquid, before drying them and lubricating both the tracks and the rollers.

Springs and other problems

Another common problem related to garage door repairs comes from the spring mechanism. There are two kinds of spring mechanism on doors, they are side-mounted (or bracket-mounted) springs and torsion springs. In many cases you can have problems with your garage door not functioning because there is too little or too much tension on the springs, which is often a problem that can be fixed quite easily (but please read the safety notice below if your garage door uses torsion springs). On doors that open by swinging upwards, the spring on each side attaches to the door by hooking into small holes and notches, and the tension of the spring can be adjusted simply by moving it on to the previous or next notch. On doors that open by rolling upwards, the spring on each side attaches to the door by a cable and pulley, and the tension of the spring can be adjusted by pulling the cable upwards through the door and reknotting the end. If your door uses a torsion spring it is highly recommended that you employ a garage door repairs professional, because the tension of the spring is so high that it can severely injure you when released.