All About Garage Door Repair

Answer 1

Garage doors are surprisingly complicated, and it is inevitable that they will break down or wear out over time. There are simply too many moving parts to last forever, and all too often garage doors are broken by improper use or in an accident. Then most famous and visceral of these breaks is when a door is driven through, most often when it fails to rise in time to miss an incoming or outgoing car. Whatever the cause, garage doors routinely need to be repaired or replaced.

Garage door repair usually amounts to replacing the door, since garage doors are flimsy. This is an intentional part of the design, so that if a car happens to plow into one, the car will not be damaged. In general, the biggest problem when it comes to replacing a garage door is that the runners upon which the door’s wheels move will have been damaged by the car which struck the door. These runners may appear to be straight when actually they are bent, causing the door to jam when it is lifted. Careful inspection and replacement of the runners is rather common.

It is also rather common in such situations to replace only damaged segments of the door instead of the entire door. Most garage doors open in four or more segments, each of which rolls back as the door is opened. In modern garage doors, these segments are designed to break away in the event of an accident, and can easily be removed just by undoing certain bolts and screws. This is much easier and less expensive than replacing an entire door, and can often enable the replacement of wooden panels that have rotted or single panels that have been vandalized or defaced.

Repairing the garage door opener often also means replacement. Though newer models are more robust and longer lasting than their predecessors, generally when a garage door opener fails, it can never be repaired. Fortunately, standardization in design and function means that many garage door openers are interchangeable, especially with newer models that are designed to replace them. Installation is easy and usually only requires removing and replacing a few bolts, except when switching from a chain driven system to a screw driven system. In that case, it is necessary to replace everything except the door itself.