Most homeowners use their garage doors more often than their front doors to come and go from their houses — the average home is estimated to operate their door over 1,500 times per year. Many homeowners make the mistake of not having their garage doors inspected and maintained regularly, and only have the door looked over by a professional once the parts or hardware on the door fail to operate normally. Without proper maintenance, you can expect future inconveniences, like being trapped inside the garage or stranded outside of it. These issues can lead to costly emergency repairs.
Keeping your garage door in proper operating condition is simple, and most garage door servicing professionals recommend performing regular maintenance at least once per year. With proper garage door maintenance done by homeowners and garage door specialists, you can help guarantee:
- Life Expectancy: Garage doors aren’t expected to reliably operate forever. However, with proper attention and care, your garage door — depending on the type, materials and usage of the door — can have a lifespan of 15 to 30 years.
- Safety: By keeping your garage door properly maintained, you can prevent malfunctions and breakages that could injure someone or cause property damages.
- Cost: Did you know that preventive maintenance is cheaper than repairs? At Cornwell Door Service, we offer preventive maintenance programs starting at just $79.95.
What to Expect During Professional Garage Door Maintenance
While many people expect their garage door to reliably and safely lift and lower as they need, without regular preventive maintenance, you may find yourself without the proper use of your garage door. This can lead to delays and expensive repairs. Garage doors feature several moving parts and different pieces of hardware that, with regular use and constant strain, will undergo normal wear and tear. At Cornwell Garage Door, we offer a comprehensive 21-point plan designed to properly identify obvious signs of damage and prevent inconvenient repairs.
All our annual tuneups and repairs are performed by a licensed and certified garage door specialist with extensive experience to expertly inspect all moving parts and identify potential issues. During our garage door maintenance, our technician will perform the following tasks:
- Visual Inspection: Our technician will thoroughly look over and lubricate all moving parts, including the springs, rollers, hinges, hardware, bearings, gears and tracks.
- Removing Debris: To ensure proper functionality, we’ll remove any dirt or other buildup from the tracks and photo eye sensors.
- Check Critical Components: During your maintenance, we also look at crucial garage door parts, like mounting pads, cables, chain and belt, weather seals and locks, that affect the overall quality of your door.
- Look for Corrosion: While performing part and hardware inspections, another crucial detail is inspecting each component for signs of corrosion or rust that could lead to improper operations or damages.
- Perform Safety Tasks: Ensuring your garage door’s safety measures are properly working is imperative for safe daily use. We will perform a UL325 safety reverse test and inspect your keyless entry and other electrical devices and elements.
After your home’s garage door inspection is complete, our technician will provide you with a detailed list outlining everything performed in your maintenance session and make any repair or upgrade recommendations as needed. We are dedicated to providing safe and affordable garage door maintenance and repair solutions to ensure proper garage door operations for many years to come.
Preventive Garage Door Homeowner Tasks
An important step for all homeowners to do to ensure the quality and proper functionality of their garage door is to note your garage door’s normal operations and pay attention to unusual behavior or noises. In between annual maintenance checks performed by your local, trusted experts at Cornwell Garage Door, you should complete these steps:
- Remove Debris Buildup: Your garage is likely to be infiltrated with bits of garbage or other forms of dirt and debris. As you notice these accumulating, remove the excess buildup that can impact proper garage door operations.
- Inspect Parts and Hardware: With normal usage, your garage door’s parts can become loose as the door moves up and down. As needed, tighten or replace any loose or missing parts or hardware, and keep moving parts like springs and chains well lubricated to prevent rust buildup.
- Note Unusual Sounds: While your garage door will always be loud when operating normally, take note of any unusual sounds your garage door or opener makes while opening and closing.
Common Garage Door Noises To Know
With predictable and reliable garage door operations, you may ignore unusual garage door noises when they arise or may just not know what those strange sounds could be. If you hear any of noisy garage door or opener sounds, they could be indicating your door is in need of repair or maintenance by a professional.
- Grinding: This sound can indicate either worn rollers or poor lubrication of moving parts and hardware.
- Banging or Squealing: Often, this affects the garage door panels themselves with either defective panels or the door is out of balance.
- Ticking or Clinking: These lighter sounds usually affect different parts — either the pulleys and bearings are worn or rust buildup has caused coils to rub together.
- Straining: With operations accompanied by a straining noise, you may have a defective garage door opener motor or the machine has inadequate horsepower to lift and lower the door.
- Rattling: While this sound can be unnerving, it often marks a loose chain or support rails.
For Your Annual Garage Door Maintenance, Trust Cornwell Door Service
To keep your garage door in proper operational condition, call the professionals at Cornwell Door Service to perform your annual routine garage door maintenance. Since 1972, we’ve been the premier garage door maintenance company serving businesses and homeowners in central Pennsylvania and throughout the Camp Hill, Lebanon and Harrisburg communities. With our extensive experience specializing in garage door installation, repair and maintenance, we guarantee all our local customers a hassle-free, reliable, affordable and friendly experience. We even provide free service estimates and emergency 24-hour repairs.
To learn more about our preventive maintenance plans — starting at just $79.95 — call us today at 844-821-5359 or fill out our online scheduling form to request services.