Thursday, June 15, 2017

4 Reasons You Really Need Garage Door Repair

After all our years in the business, we’d like to say we’ve seen it all in commercial and residential garage doors when it comes to repairs.  At Overhead Door Company of Lansing, we pride ourselves on the best service and parts in the business, and we’re proud to serve the greater Lansing, MI area. Here are some of the most common problems we see when a garage door suddenly won’t work.
 
Transmitter Suddenly Stops Working.
You come home late at night, and it’s raining (because it’s always raining when things go wrong), and when you point your transmitter at your door, nothing happens. The first thing you want to check are the batteries in your transmitter.  If you can still open the door from the transmitter inside your garage, there’s a good chance that it’s just the batteries, and we just saved you a service call. Change out the batteries using two fresh new batteries and if that doesn’t take care of the problem, give us a call.  Helpful Tip: If you have more than one transmitter, change out the batteries in all of them at the same time. If one has failed, the others aren’t far behind.
 
Something Blocking the Photo Eye.
The Photo Eye mechanism is what prevents your garage door from closing if something is blocking it. For those of you who remember the game when we were kids of dashing under the garage door before it closed the photo eye now prevents this. This important safety measure on all garage doors was made mandatory in 1993 and probably has saved countless lives because of it. Located on either side of your garage entrance, the eyes can sometimes get dirt, bugs or other debris in front of them and that can cause your garage door to fail to go all the way up or down. If clearing the eyes does not work, then they are most likely out of alignment, so give us a call to make sure they are calibrated correctly.

Your Track is Out of Alignment.
The metal track that your garage door runs on can move if it is bumped, or even just because of the aging and shifting of the building. Once it is out of alignment, it affects the entire mechanism including, the rollers, hinges, and springs. If your door slows down at a certain point when it is opening or closing, or makes a grinding or rubbing noise your tracks may be misaligned. Our trained repair technicians can safely realign and repair your tracks to get your door working smoothly again.

Torsion Spring Failure.
The heavy lifters in a garage door are industrial grade springs called torsion springs, and depending on the size and make of your garage door there are one or two of them. As with any repetitive movement, the springs begin to wear, and when they go, you’ll know it as it sounds like a shotgun blast. Any garage door that is more than 20 years old risks a torsion spring failure and should be replaced. When a torsion spring breaks, the cables that lift the door will snap as well and fly out and could cause serious damage to your vehicle or anyone in the garage.