Should You Replace or Repair Your Broken Garage Door?

A garage door is a heavy, complex piece of equipment. Most of them have several different hinges and may have an electrical power unit installed. When you’re working on a garage door, you have to take into account the weight and the fact that most of that weight is suspended.

Therefore, for repairs to the tracks or any of the mechanisms that lift and close the garage door, the first step is to be sure you have a strong friend handy to make sure that it doesn’t fall on you!

To check the tracks which the garage door moves along, close the door first. This ensures that the weight isn’t suspended above your head. Check each track with a flashlight and a  arrow brush to make sure that there are no obstructions visible.

You’ll also want to take a look at the brackets to make sure they’re firmly fixed to the wall. If any of this equipment is damaged, replacement is sometimes preferable to repair. Minor problems, of course, can be fixed with a quick trip to a hardware store, but because this mechanism holds and moves the entire weight of the garage door, the safest thing to do if you have any doubt is to call in a garage door repair specialist.

If the tracks on the garage door seem good, check the door itself. Any significant splitting around the hinges is a sign that you need to replace the whole garage door.

In some lucky cases, these hinges have simply come loose. If this is the case, you can simply re-tighten them and see if the door functions correctly. Repair can save you money, but be sure you’re not just compromising your family’s safety on a garage door that should be replaced.