When cold winter winds blow and snow starts to fall, even a short walk from your car to your front door can feel like a tortuous experience.
So your garage becomes your safe haven from outdoor chills. But when your garage door stops working, that short walk can turn into purgatory.
Don’t let your garage door fail you during the coldest months of the year.
Follow our tips to prevent the most common winter garage door problems.
Garage Door Freezes to the Floor
When you drive through a snowy driveway, your car’s tires track in snow and water into your garage.
If your weather seals aren’t tight at the beginning of the winter, stray moisture can adhere to the rubber at the bottom of your garage door.
The frozen moisture sticks the weather stripping to the bottom of the garage door.
Then, when you open your garage door, the force can rip the weather stripping from its place.
To avoid breaking your weather stripping, sweep snow away from the bottom of the garage door as often as possible.
You can also spray a bit of cooking spray to the bottom of the garage door to keep it from attracting water.
Thickened Grease
Grease is designed to work well even when heat builds up between moving parts.
It gets slicker and more lubricating when temperatures rise, allowing the rollers and track to move smoothly when your garage door opens and closes.
During the winter, however, temperatures can drop so much that the grease hardens and makes a poor lubricant.
To solve this problem, remove the old layer of grease with a grease solvent and a firm bristle brush. Make sure to work into small cracks. Then wipe the solvent off and apply a silicone-based lubricant.
You should reapply lubricant at least once a year to prevent moving parts from grinding together and causing damage.
Broken Gears
When the garage door freezes to the bottom of the driveway, it may struggle against the gears.
The force holding the garage door to the ground fights against the gears as they try to move the door upward. If you don’t notice that the garage fails to open, the gears could fail.
In this case, you’ll have to call a garage door repairman to make necessary repairs and even replace broken parts.
Grit in the Garage Door Drive Track
During the winter, many people use salt, sand, and grit to help melt snow from the roads.
You may track in the grit on your tires as you enter your garage every day. Or it could blow in during winter storms. In either case, the grit from the ground tends to bury itself in cracks and crevices.
You should be wary of grit in the drive tracks of your garage door (the two tracks on either side of your door that guide it into place as it lowers and raises).
When small debris get into the drive track, they can cause the door to jam. Solve this problem by brushing the drive track often, especially after new snow falls.
Contracting Metal
When the temperature drops, the metal in your garage door contracts.
This affects the tracks, rollers, springs, and screws in your garage door system. Since the metal takes up less space, there is more air between the moving parts in your garage, giving the pieces more opportunities to scrape against each other and get damaged.
To prevent further winter garage door problems, apply more lubricant in the winter than you would in the summer.
Use lubricant on the springs, the screw drive, and the torsion ball bearings.
Prevent Problems Today
Don’t let your winter garage door problems get you down. Apply these simple maintenance tips to keep your garage door functioning properly all year long.
Need help? Call AA Garage Door at 651-702-1420 now.
Great article thank you for sharing.