Garage doors that suddenly seem to be opening and closing with much less speed provide great inconvenience to homeowners that may be in a rush to enter or exit their home, not to mention being less energy efficient and indicating that it may be time to replace the garage door opener itself. In this blog entry, the garage door repair experts here at Garage Door Repair Chicago will provide some remedies for slowly opening garage doors.

Normal Opening and Closing Times for Garage Doors

Garage doors usually take between twelve and fifteen seconds to open or close, running a complete cycle. If your garage door is taking over twenty seconds to close or open, you must have the garage door inspected by a professional garage door technician.

Fixing A Slowly Opening Garage Door

One of the most common and simple remedies for slowly opening garage doors is just simple lubrication. When garage doors aren’t lubricated, the parts work harder when they are running opening or closing cycles, causing them to run slower. Since garage doors are often used every day and night, they degrade over time, making springs lose tension and pulleys to become worn out – which additionally makes it operate more slowly.

First, lubricate all of the garage door’s hinges, tracks, and brackets. Then test to see if the door is operating at a faster speed. Ensure that the garage door doesn’t have speed controls set to slow. 

If speed setting recalibration and lubrication doesn’t give you a solution, call a licensed garage door repair technician. One of Mazal’s excellent garage door service people will inspect all the pulleys in the garage door opener, as well as all springs, in order to verify that a more technically challenging issue isn’t requiring professional repair. Always make sure that a professional is handling these maintenance objectives, as it’s dangerous for the average layperson to mess with garage door springs, as garage doors handle a huge amount of tension and power.