If your garage door is making weird noises or looks uneven, it’s balance may be way off. Properly balanced garage doors have evenly distributed weight due to properly operating springs – ensuring that weight and tension is evenly spread out so that the garage door opener isn’t stressed out, and so that the door opens smoothly without too much sound. When garage doors are unbalanced, openers are strained; here’s a guide from the garage door repair experts here at Garage Door Repair Chicago on how to check your garage door balance.
Checking Garage Door Balance
- While the garage door is closed, unhook the door from the garage door opener and pull on the emergency release cord.
- Manually open the door using the handle. IF the door sticks, add lubricant to the rollers and try again. If it still doesn’t work, try lubricating the hinges. Contact a professional if the lubricant still doesn’t help at all.
- If the door opens, pull it halfway up and let go of the handle in order to check the door’s balance. The door should remain in the middle, with a little motion from one side to the other. If the door is unbalanced , the door will either move up or fall down rather quickly.
- When you’re done checking, attach the garage door to the opener again.
How Unbalanced Garage Doors are Dangerous
Unbalanced garage doors place great strain on garage door openers, which can wear them down – or even totally break them – in a very fast manner. Garage door springs or cables can also break if the garage door isn’t balanced properly, which can potentially place all of your family or property in great danger. Snapped or broken garage door springs, cables, or openers can cause garage doors to rapidly slam shut – which carries immense weight, and can potentially harm any person, animal, or object in the vicinity. If your garage door is unbalanced, failing the above DIY balance check, you MUST contact a properly trained garage door repair expert, like those here at Chicago Garage Door & Gate, as soon as humanly possible.
