Garage door maintenance that gets you through a Northern Michigan winter

What a tune-up actually covers

A garage door is a system. The springs lift it, the cables and drums carry the load, the rollers and track guide it and the opener drives it. When one piece wears, the others work harder. A tune-up looks at all of it together.

At the end we tell you what we found, what we took care of and what's starting to wear, so nothing on the list comes as a surprise later.

• Springs checked for wear, gaps and lost tension
• Cables and drums inspected for fraying and proper wrap
• Rollers, hinges and bearings lubricated and checked for wear
• Track alignment and mounting brackets checked
• Loose hinge and track hardware tightened
• Door balance tested with the opener disconnected
• Opener travel limits and force settings checked
• Photo-eye sensors and safety reverse tested
• Bottom seal and perimeter weather stripping inspected

The balance test tells the truth about your springs

A properly balanced door feels light when you lift it by hand and stays roughly in place when you let go halfway up. If it drops or creeps up, the springs are out of adjustment or wearing out.

A door out of balance makes the opener do the lifting the springs are supposed to do. That wears out gears and motors faster and often shows up as an opener that strains, stalls or reverses for no clear reason.

If you want to check it yourself, pull the manual release only with the door fully closed, then lift the door by hand. If it's heavy, uneven or falls when you let go, stop there and call the office. Spring adjustment is our job, never a homeowner's.

Lubrication and hardware done the right way

Rollers, hinges, bearings and springs all benefit from a light coat of lubricant made for garage doors. The tracks are the exception. They should be wiped clean, not greased, because heavy grease collects grit and stiffens in the cold.

A garage door shakes a little every time it runs, and over the years hinge and track bolts work loose. We snug them back up. The one place nobody should put a wrench is the bottom brackets where the cables attach, since those are under spring tension and are left to our crew.

The safety reverse test protects people and pets

Every modern opener has two safety systems. Photo-eye sensors near the floor send a closing door back up when something breaks the beam, and the opener itself should reverse when the door meets resistance.

We test both. You can check them between visits, too: wave an object through the beam while the door closes, and lay a piece of 2x4 flat under the door to confirm it reverses when it touches the board. If it doesn't, stop using the opener and call us.

Weather seals keep the cold and snow outside

The rubber seal along the bottom of the door and the stop molding around the sides and top are what keep wind, snow and mice out. After a few seasons of sun and cold, they crack, flatten and pull away.

Worn seals mean drafts into an attached garage, snow melt pooling on the floor and a bottom edge that freezes to the concrete. We replace bottom seals and perimeter weather stripping as part of maintenance or on their own. It's a small job that makes an attached garage noticeably warmer and drier.

Fall service beats a January breakdown

Traverse City winters are long, and lake-effect snow often piles up past 100 inches in a season. Cold weather is hard on garage doors: lubricants thicken, steel parts stiffen, openers work harder and seals freeze to the floor.

A spring that's close to the end of its life often lets go when the temperature drops. Finding it during a fall tune-up means replacing it on your schedule, not on a frozen morning with the car stuck inside.

Fall is also when everyone else thinks of it, so call the office early in the season. We're open Monday to Friday, 7:30 am to 4:00 pm, and we'll find a time that works.