Overhead door maintenance and safety tips
Consider your garage door as an important part of your building. As such, handle it with care and perform the suggested maintenance on it to ensure it will work smoothly for many years to come. Talk to a GARAGA-certified installer about a maintenance contract based on the frequency of use of your garage door. Get in touch with our technical staff for further details about this program.
Exterior finish
Wash your garage door with a mild detergent, such as a dish detergent, and a car brush. To remove tough stains, use an all-purpose cleaner for the home. Thoroughly rinse the surface with a garden hose. Waxing your garage door once a year with liquid car wax will protect its lustre. For best results, never apply wax in direct sunlight.
Door hardware
Lubricate all galvanized parts, such as rollers, hinges, and tracks with motor oil (e.g.: 10W30). A light oil coating on these parts will prevent surface rust from forming. Keep in mind that the rollers are meant to "roll" in the garage door tracks, not to slide in them. This is why the use of grease in the tracks is not recommended. However, if you choose to use grease to lubricate the tracks, apply it sparingly and make sure you remove the old grease before applying the new.
As for the torsion springs, spread motor oil over their surface and wipe away any excess with a cloth. The damper the area, the more often this procedure has to be done. This simple trick will help to prolong the life of your garage door's torsion springs and ensure they work properly. Carefully inspect the cables to detect any signs of fraying.
The "cable-spring-wall anchorage" assembly is under high tension. For your own safety, never attempt to adjust it yourself. Check the counterbalancing of the door every three months to make sure the springs are working properly. Open and close the door manually. If the garage door is equipped with a motor, deactivate the mechanism to operate the door manually. A well-balanced door weighs only 4 to 7 kilograms. If the door seems heavier than that to you, it could be due to a decompressed spring, a loose cable, a broken roller, or a warped track. Call on the services of a GARAGA-certified installer for any required adjustment.
Manual operation of garage doors
A- With a chain hoist
Make sure that you always open your garage door smoothly and that you are especially careful about the way you close it. For doors measuring 12 ft. (3660 mm ) X 12 ft. (3660 mm) and more, it is absolutely normal that the door seems heavy, especially once it is fully open in a horizontal position. Do not activate the chain hoist too roughly since this will probably make the lifting cables dislodge from the drums. Make sure the chain is securely fastened to its hook when the garage door is open.
B- With a rope or a chain
Refer to the procedure found in item "A". Above all, when closing your garage door, be especially careful not to release it too quickly so it does not hit the floor too hard. Always control the closing of the door until it reaches the floor.
Electric operation of garage doors
Refer to your owner's manual. A garage door operator requires very little maintenance. On the other hand, its motor's safety system, whether pneumatic, mechanical, or photoelectric, requires a monthly inspection to make sure it is working properly. Ask your GARAGA-certified garage door installer to explain to you how this is done.
Always make sure the door's path is free from impediments, such as a ladder, pieces of wood, or anything else. Otherwise, you risk having the door hit the obstacle and dislodge the lifting cables from their drums.
Never let the garage door open and close in rapid succession. Make sure you allow a 2- to 3-second delay between each operation to give a chance to the balancing assembly of cables-drums-springs to come to a full stop. Otherwise, cables may dislodge from their drums. In the event this situation arises, do not attempt to correct the problem yourself.Get in touch with a GARAGA door installer and he will advise you on what to do. In addition, never adjust the garage door motor's limit switch. Let a GARAGA installer do it for you. He has the expertise to set it correctly.
The weather stripping found around the frame and bottom edge
If you wish to clean your garage door's weather stripping that is made of PVC, use an all-purpose cleaner for the home. Thoroughly rinse with a garden hose. Generously lubricate weather stripping with a silicone-based product. Never use a petroleum-based lubricant, such as WD-40 TM, since petroleum is known to adversely affect the elastic properties of rubber. Weather stripping rubber must remain flexible to be an efficient barrier. Repeat the same procedure for weather stripping found at panel intersections and at the bottom edge of the door. If you choose to adjust frame weather stripping yourself, avoid squeezing it against the door. Allow about 0.5 in. (12 mm) between weather stripping base and door. Excessive rubbing of the door will prevent weather stripping from working properly and wear it out prematurely.
Preventive maintenance : it pays !
The maintenance of your building's garage doors must be taken seriously. Your employees' safety and the smooth running of your operations (receiving/shipping) depend on it.
We recommend that you call an expert installer to look after the maintenance of your garage doors.
Why do they break all the time?
A garage door system is an important component of a building. It is important to understand what might be happening if the system is not performing according to the user's expectations.
- The accessories that have been installed are not appropriate for the usage of the door system (actual number of operation cycles has been underestimated).
- The number of cycles of the torsion springs is not appropriate for the frequency of use(springs break more often).
- Inappropriate operation by users.
How to reduce maintenance costs?
If you select the components best suited to the conditions of operation of your doors and do regular maintenance before they break, you will significantly reduce your annual maintenance costs. In the Garaga Sturdiness Section, we show that the incremental cost of your initial investment would be about 10% to insure that you have the components best suited to your operating conditions. Will you have a quick “payback” on your additional investment? Look at the annual maintenance costs of your doors plus the indirect costs related to a malfunction (ex.: inoperative door at certain times) and you will come to the conclusion that the additional initial investment is well worth it.
To help you determine how ofter you should perform preventive maintenance on your doors, we have divided the sectional doors in 3 categories:
- Type A buildings which require maintenance every 3 months (more than 7,500 cycles per year).
Examples: apartment building or condominiums, transit companies.
- Type B buildings which require maintenance every 6 months (between 3,000 and 7,500 cycles per year).
Examples: auto repair shops, car dealerships, distribution centres.
- Type C buildings which require maintenance every 12 months (less than 3,000 cycles per year).
Examples: municipal garages, fire stations, warehouses
What are the maintenance costs?
- You can enter into an annual maintenance contract with your Garaga distributor.
- You can also pay for the work done on an hourly basis.
In all cases, it is preferable to set up a technical file for each of your garage doors. By having all the technical data available on file, your Garaga INDUSTRIAL distributor will be able to respond promptly in case of unforeseen incidents.