Garage Door Repair Chicago Archives - Page 11 of 12

Why did my garage door fall off it’s tracks?

Published September 23, 2017 By GDAdmin

There’s many reasons that garage doors fall off their tracks, hitting the ground. By understanding what can cause this situation, you can be better prepared to help prevent it from ever happening. Garage door track derailment can be very dangerous, so it should be avoided at all costs. Here’s a guide to the causes of garage door track derailment, as prepared by the experts at Garage Door Repair Chicago.

Hitting the Garage Door with a car

This is the most common reason garage doors come off their tracks. Even simply backing up into the door can cause the system to suffer damage, even at really low speeds of 3 to 5 miles per hour. This usually causes the rollers to come off their tracks, leaving the garage door hanging from it’s cables. If this happens, get away from the garage and call a licensed garage door specialist.

Weight on the Horizontal Tracks or Track Misalignment

If the garage door has cheap horizontal tracks, the door’s weight can cause the tracks to bend under the weight. If this happens, they should be replaced with steel tracks that contain iron reinforcements. Additionally, the tracks may be misaligned, not at total parallel positioning that’s aligned with the vertical tracks. This can happen if the bolts on the brackets become loose, causing the wobble to move them, preventing the rollers from staying on the track.

Worn out Rollers

If a single or double of your garage door rollers break from wear, they are likely low quality to begin with, and their breakage may cause the rest of the rollers to experience too much stress, causing them to break off in turn – which will then cause the horizontal rails to bend. Make sure to understand which type of rollers is best for your garage door- steel, nylon, or nylon covered steel – and how many ball bearings is required. As a general rule, the heavier the door, the more ball bearings the better – so when replacing rollers, ask for ones with at least 10 ball bearings.

Broken Lift Cables

If the lift cables on either side of the door break off their wound position around the drum grooves, the cable won’t line up correctly, unraveling and eventually suddenly snapping. This will cause all the weight of the garage door to suddenly shift to a single side, which leaves the door open on one side, and partially closed on the other – which will obviously cause the rollers to fall off the tracks. Make sure to get cables that are properly wide and thick according to the heaviness of the garage door – just make sure to ask your garage door expert what the proper cable diameter for your door is.

Opening Garage Doors during Power Outages

Published June 23, 2017 By GDAdmin

Opening Garage Doors During Power Outages

When power outages make your electrically operated garage doors completely useless, it can pose a serious inconvenience and even security risk for your home. How else are you supposed to fit your car inside your garage, or get it out of it? Luckily, the experts at Garage Door Chicago have prepared an fantastic list of tips on how you can get into your garage even when your garage door opener is completely useless during a power outage.

Bypassing

Most garage doors have a bypass system that turns off the automatic garage door opener and allows you to manually open the garage door. If there’s a rope hanging from your garage door opener system, usually one with a handle, that is your bypass trigger. Simply pull the handle, and the opener will disengage from the unusable automatic electronic system. Only activate the bypass when the garage door is closed, because if you do so while the garage door is open, the door will slam down at an extreme speed which could seriously damage the door or anybody in the vicinity.

Opening the Door during Outages

Pull the rope back and as near to the garage door motor as it can possibly be. This will keep it out of the way while you manually operate the garage door. Hopefully your power will only be out for a tiny bit of time, and that you can automatically operate your garage door soon. Homeowner’s have used garage door manual functions for years before there were automatic garage door openers – and even though it’s not as convenient, it’s a handy method that doesn’t rely on the availability of electric power.

When the Power Comes Back On

When the power returns, you will just simply have to reattach your garage door to the automatic door opener. Pull the rope handle, just like you did when you disengaged it, and pull up on the door until you hear it snap back into place. You can also simply press a button on the automatic opener, and you will see the spring attachment reconnect as soon as the opener reaches the correct point. If your garage door doesn’t work with the opener after a power outage, you will have to contact a garage door repair expert, like those at Garage Door Chicago.

Safety Tips

Power outages can pose serious dangers and inconveniences to your home, but they shouldn’t render your garage door unsafe. Even when the power is out, garage doors are immensely heavy and dangerous pieces of equipment. Make sure to manage the danger of garage doors by always being careful when you disengage and reengage your automatic garage door opener, and make sure all people, animals, and equipment are clear from the vicinity of the garage door when you do so.

Opening Garage Doors during Power Outages

Published March 22, 2017 By GDAdmin

Automatic garage doors provide a high level of convenience; so much so, that anybody with one will likely never ever want to return to what seems like the Jurassic era technology of manual garage doors. However, power outages can render automatic garage doors inoperable, and you stuck outside in your car. OR, on the other hand, it can result in a car being trapped inside a garage. Here’s a guide by the experts at Garage Door Repair Chicago on how to open your garage door even during a power outage.

Advanced Warning Signs of Broken Garage Door

Published February 8, 2017 By GDAdmin

Garage doors might seem like very simple and straightforward pieces of equipment, but they are rather very technically complex, and contain a range of intricate moving parts that have to be handled with an expert’s touch. Unbalanced garage doors can become highly dangerous especially if they are allowed to remain for a while without any repairs. Here’s how to tell if your garage door is unbalanced, and requires expert repair service.