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.
