Before a garage door gets to the point where it no longer opens or manifests some other kind of problem, it will display signs. It may get heavier and harder to open or much noisier than it used to be. However, if you are using an automatic opener like pretty much everyone or can’t hear a noise difference from inside your car, these issues tend to go unnoticed. However, if you are doing regular maintenance on your garage door, you should highly consider running these three tests to detect issues early.
Testing Door Balance
With the garage door closed, go ahead and disconnect the automatic opener. On most garage doors, this will now enable you to open them manually. When lifting, the garage door should be heavy, but not hard to lift. When it reaches the top, it should also remain open. If the door doesn’t open easily or closes after you do lift it, it could mean the door is out of balance.
Testing the Reverse Mechanism
With your door opens, place a piece of wood in the garage door’s path and press the wall switch. If you have eye sensors, when you press the wall switch or remote, the door should not move at all because there is something in their path. If you don’t have sensors, when the door hits the wood, it should reverse automatically. Depending on what sort of garage door you have, both issues need to be fixed not so much for the function, but rather for safety.
Testing the Force
Similar to the above test, this time close your garage door and try to force it back up with your hand as it is closing. If you apply upwards pressure and the door still keeps closing, first of all, move your hand. Secondly, you need to have your door serviced. If this happens then your door is exerting too much force. If it is doing so because of an issue with the springs, that needs to be addressed as soon as possible as a broken spring can do a lot of damage.
Have you run any of these tests and discovered issues with your garage door? Contact us today to see what we can do to help. Those issues may be minor now, but they only get more costly to repair from here.
