How Precision Door Professionals Fix Off-Track Garage Doors
Your garage door may come off its track due to assorted reasons. For instance, this door may come off its track if you often hit your garage door with your car when entering or exiting your garage. Worn-out rollers and out-of-alignment tracks are other reasons for an off-track garage door. When this happens, you should stop using the door and fix it. Below is a discussion on how professionals from Precision Door advise people to fix such garage doors.
The Tools That Precision Door Professionals Need When Fixing Such Garage Doors
• A rubber or wooden mallet
• Locking pliers
• Pliers
After collecting these tools, you should do the following.
Disconnect the Garage Door Opener
Disconnecting the garage door opener is the first thing to do when trying to fix a garage door that has come off its track. To disconnect this door opener, you should pull on the string hanging from your garage door opener’s console. Doing this will help you disengage your garage door opener from your garage door, making it possible to close and open your garage door manually.
Open the Garage Door
After ensuring that your garage door is no longer connected to the garage door opener, lift the door. You should, however, be careful when lifting this door since it is usually heavy and can slam down and injure you. If possible, you should ask someone else to help you lift it.
Locate the Wheels That Are Getting Off the Track
After opening your garage door, locate the jamming wheels. If you cannot locate these wheels, manually close the garage door and open it again. If you do not locate them after doing all these, request help from a Precision Door professional. After locating these wheels, secure the tracks using locking pliers.
Bring the Jamming Wheels Back to Track
To bring the jamming wheels back to the track, you should use your other pair of pliers to open your garage door track. You should open the track at the specific spot where your garage door had jumped off-track. After opening it, put the jamming wheels back on the track, and then close the opening that you had previously made. At this point, you should use your mallet to knock the track until your garage door gets back on its track.
Check Whether the Garage Door Is Properly Aligned
Now that you are done fixing all the rollers, you should check whether they are operating smoothly. Doing this will help you ensure that the garage door closes and opens well. To check whether these rollers are operating smoothly, you should manually close and open your garage door severally. While opening this door, test whether it is well balanced and aligned. If you feel that the door is somehow misaligned, you should fix the rollers again.
Check Whether the Garage Will Operate Well
After ensuring that the garage door is properly aligned, you should engage it with the garage door opener. Depending on your garage door opener, you can use a remote control to activate the door opener. At this point, you should allow the door to close and open automatically. If it does this successfully a few times, consider your garage door good.
What to Do If the Garage Door Fails to Close and Open at the Press of a Remote Button
If your garage door fails to close and open at the press of a remote button, it means that there is something wrong with the door. Maybe one of the lift cables on either side of your garage door is broken. That usually happens due to roller damage or sudden impact, making the cable unravel. This cable is likely to break because of stress.
If this is the case, you should request a professional from Precision Door to replace the broken lift cables. Such a professional will likely replace the damaged cable with a seven-strand lift cable. This cable is usually strong and will get the job done.
Another reason that can make your garage door fail to operate smoothly even after fixing is a worn-out roller. The stress put on the rest of the rollers when this roller is not working is likely to cause bending of the horizontal tracks. If your garage door is failing to operate smoothly due to this, you should request garage door professionals to replace the worn-out rollers with rollers that have ten ball bearings. You should also ensure that the new rollers are of the correct sizes.
Dirt buildup can also make your garage door not operate smoothly. For instance, if there are dirt particles on either side of the garage door, it will not operate smoothly. If this is the case, you should remove the dirt and lubricate the rollers, and then set them back in place.
Bent tracks can also make your garage door not operate at the press of a remote button. That is likely to happen if your horizontal garage door tracks are made from low-grade steel or are old. These tracks can also bend if they are not properly aligned with the vertical tracks. You should seek professional assistance if you think that your garage door is not operating smoothly because of this. You should also seek assistance from Precision Doors if:
• Your garage door is hanging crookedly even after fixing it.
• Your garage door is producing a lot of noise when operating it.
How to Ensure That Your Garage Door Does Not Come Off the Track in the Future
After fixing your garage door, you need to think about the things you need to do to ensure that the same issue does not recur in the future. Some of the things you need to do are:
• Check the rollers and track now and then to ensure that the track is free of dirt and the rollers are in the right places.
• Apply some lubricant on the rollers to ensure that they run smoothly.
A garage door that has come off the track can be a big inconvenience, especially if this door starts malfunctioning when you want to get your car out of your garage. When this happens, you should disconnect the garage door opener and then manually open the garage door. After doing this, you should identify the jamming wheels and bring them back to track. If you experience any difficulties when doing all this, you should request a professional to help you.
