Garage Doors and Maintenance: Keep Your Door in Great Shape

When I bought my first home, I knew I was going to have to start maintaining different parts of the home to keep everything functioning properly. However, what I did not realize was that the garage door was one of these things. I decided to create this website because I had no idea how much maintenance a garage door needed and what types of maintenance. If you aren't cleaning your garage door tracks, checking for loose screws or oiling the tracks on a bi-monthly basis, I hope my website teaches you how to do this maintenance and the importance of performing it.

Three Tips For Clearing Off Pieces Of Debris That Are In A Garage Door's Tension Spring

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Without a large and strong tension spring, your garage door won't be able to automatically lift itself off of the ground. Since a garage door tension spring is one of the most vulnerable parts of a garage door system, it's something that's worth paying attention to. When you're seeking to improve the efficiency of your tension spring by clearing pieces of debris off of it, remember these three tips.

Use A Small Pair Of Tweezers To Open One Part Of The Spring At A Time

If the garage door tension spring was installed correctly, it should be wound too tight for you to just pry it open with your hands. If you want to get rid of small dust bunnies and pieces of miscellaneous debris that are stuck in between individual metal sections, you'll need a tool that has the ability to concentrate a relatively large amount of force in a small area.

A small but quality pair of personal tweezers is the ideal tool for dealing with this problem. If you try to use a really cheap pair of tweezers that doesn't have as thick of a metal layer in the middle, there's a good chance that it'll snap because of the pressure you put on it.

Use A Knife To Chip Off Excessive Rust On An Old Spring

Before you start trying to pry apart individual sections of the tension spring, it makes sense to get rid of as much exterior rust as you can. The thicker the rust on the outside of the spring is, the harder it'll be for you to establish a good grip on the metal with your tweezers.

While there are many tools you can use in this situation, a knife is ideal for a crude, quick, and nonetheless effective tool. When you consider both the small size of a garage door tension spring and the fact that you only need to clear rust away for a specific and temporary task, there's no reason to go overboard with taking on rust formations that are too set in the metal for your knife to handle.

Don't Try To Dislodge The Spring Unless You Have The Right Tools And Knowledge

Even though it would undoubtedly be easier if you could clear all the debris off of the tension spring while you're holding it still on a desk, you mustn't dislodge the spring from its position unless you know exactly what you need to do to put it back. Otherwise, you could be forced to call a repairman to bail you out on what should be a relatively minor cleaning job.

Although they're small, tension springs are no joke when it comes to the efficient and convenient operation of your garage door. If you ignore junk that builds up on a garage door tension spring until the spring stops working entirely, you'll have a huge headache on your hands.

For more information, contact a professional like America's Garage Doors LLC.

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26 June 2015