Buying a garage door is a serious issue, because your purchase needs to last for many years and to function properly all this time. Taking into consideration that a garage door has some parts which are often put in motion, they will invariably wear out and they may need a repair or a replacement before your door will need to be changed with a new one.

This is a brief guide of the garage door parts that may break, resulting in malfunctions:

Garage Door Springs Repair

There are two types of garage door springs: torsion springs and extension springs. Their role is to move the door when it opens and closes. You should never attempt to replace a broken torsion spring, because you expose yourself to a serious risk of getting maimed. The tension these springs accumulate is huge, and in order for the replacement to go on smoothly, special tools and exact knowledge of the steps to do are required. As far as I know, the last models of garage doors from Wayne Dalton and Clopay use another type of torsion springs, which can be tensioned with the help of an electric drill. This is probably safer than the old type, but in any case, replacing torsion springs is an operation which takes at least 6 hours, and which costs probably less than $100, so it’s your choice if you want to spend so much time and to risk your life for this amount of money you could save.

Extension springs can be replaced by do-it-yourself garage owners. As I found this extensive garage door repair springs replacement guide, I’m linking to it, so you can read it, because it makes no sense to write everything again. The author wrote it much better than I’ll ever be able to, so if you are interested, just click on the previous link.

Garage Door Openers Repair

The garage door opener is the mechanism which actually lifts the door, so you can enter and exit the garage. Its main part is an electric motor which is commanded through a button touch. This command button can be connected to the main power circuit of the house, or it can be on a battery-operated remote control which you’ll keep in your car and which communicates via radio or infrared waves with the motor. The electric motor is linked to a track-and-pulley system, which is in fact the thing that moves the door up and down or to the sides, depending on your door model. All garage door repair guides indicate that in case of malfunction you should first check the batteries of the remote unit, because it’s frequent to get discharged and because you have no warning signs to know that’s the problem.

Another thing that needs periodic check and maintenance is the garage door insulation. If it gets damaged, your door will still function, but your home will have too much of a temperature exchange with the outside environment, so you’ll have bigger electricity bills in winter and in summer. Garage door insulation can be replaced, there are special kits which you buy and you can install by yourself. This kind of repair is safe to do it yourself.

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