Is Your Garage Door Ready for Phelan’s Seasons?

Feeling unsure whether your garage door can continue to operate reliably? Regular maintenance helps keep your door functioning safely and efficiently, preventing sudden failures that leave your car trapped or your home exposed. If your door is making noise or moving slowly, schedule your preventive maintenance today.

Good Golly Garage Doors understands that daily operation places unique stress on moving mechanical parts. From track alignment to spring tension, your system requires professional attention to remain reliable. Neglect often leads to complex failures, but a proactive tune-up addresses minor wear before it becomes a major expense.

• Extend your door’s lifespan with yearly maintenance checks.
• Reduce the risk of costly unexpected repairs through regular upkeep.
• Ensure smooth and safe operation with professional tuning and balancing.

Licensed professionals backed by satisfaction guarantees, schedule your service.

What You Get: Scope, Relief, Services Included

When you book a preventive maintenance visit, the objective is to restore your system to factory specifications. A garage door is the largest moving object in your home, comprised of hundreds of independent parts that must work in unison. Over time, vibrations loosen hardware, and lubricants dry out, leading to friction that damages the opener and the door itself. Our comprehensive tune-up service addresses the entire mechanism, not just the obvious squeaks.

We focus on the tension and alignment of the counterbalance system. If your springs are losing tension, the heavy lifting falls on your electric opener, significantly shortening its life. We adjust spring tension to ensure the door is balanced, meaning it should stay halfway open without falling or shooting up when disconnected from the opener. We also tighten all hinges, brackets, and bolts that have worked loose due to daily operation.

Our technicians examine the condition of your rollers. Worn rollers can pop out of the track or drag, causing the door to bind. We lubricate or recommend replacement for rollers that have developed flat spots or bearing failure. Furthermore, we inspect the lift cables for fraying. A snapped cable is a dangerous event, catching a fray early prevents property damage and injury.

The service includes a full safety inspection of the reverse mechanism. We test the photo-eye sensors to ensure they are aligned and clean, instantly reversing the door if an object breaks the beam. We also test the force settings on the motor, ensuring the door reverses if it physically contacts an object. This is a critical safety feature for households with children or pets.

How Our Maintenance Services Work: Step-by-Step Guide to Safety and Efficiency

We utilize a systematic approach to maintenance that leaves nothing to chance. Our technicians follow a rigorous checklist designed to uncover hidden issues that a visual glance might miss. This process ensures that every component, from the smallest fastener to the main torsion spring, is evaluated for integrity and performance.

• First, we perform a complete visual and auditory inspection. We operate the door to listen for grinding, scraping, or squealing noises that indicate specific mechanical failures. We look for rust on springs, cracks in the panels, or bends in the track that could impede movement.
• Next, we disconnect the opener to test the door manually. This allows us to feel the weight of the door and check the balance. A properly balanced door should be easy to lift with one hand. If the door feels heavy, the springs need adjustment, if it flies up, they are too tight.
• Following the balance test, we tighten every piece of hardware. This includes the lags securing the track to the wall, the bolts on the opener, and the screws on the hinges. Vibration is the enemy of a garage door, and tightening these components stabilizes the entire system.
• Then, we focus on lubrication. We apply professional-grade lithium or silicone spray, never standard grease which attracts Phelan’s dust, to the springs, rollers, and hinges. Proper lubrication reduces friction, quiets the operation, and protects metal parts from corrosion.
• Finally, we calibrate the opener. We check the travel limits to ensure the door opens fully without hitting the stop bolt and closes tightly without bowing the rail. We also test and adjust the down-force sensitivity to ensure the safety reversal system activates correctly.

When to Consider a Full Overhaul: Cost vs. Benefit Analysis

While preventive maintenance can significantly extend the life of your garage door system, there comes a point where repair costs outweigh the benefits of keeping an aging system running. Understanding when to transition from maintenance to replacement is key to managing your home improvement budget effectively.

Consider the age and technology of your current setup. If your opener is more than 15 years old, it may lack current safety features or reliable electronics. In this case, maintenance alone may not be sufficient, and replacement can be the more responsible option

Additionally, if you are calling for repairs multiple times a year, the cumulative cost of service calls will quickly exceed the price of a new, reliable system.

Evaluate the physical condition of the door panels. Good Golly Garage Doors technicians often see wood doors that have warped, cracked, or deteriorated due to age and prolonged use. Once the structural integrity of the door sections is compromised, maintenance cannot restore them. Warped sections throw the door out of alignment, damaging tracks and overworking openers. In these situations, a full overhaul provides improved insulation, security, and curb appeal.

Rust is another deciding factor. In older steel doors, rust can eat through the bottom section or compromise the hinge attachment points. If the metal is too weak to hold a screw, tightening hardware is impossible. Surface rust can be treated, but structural corrosion necessitates replacement. We help you crunch the numbers, if a repair costs 50% or more of the price of a new system, an overhaul is generally the smarter investment.

Why Choose Us: Trusted Partnership, Verified Results

Selecting a service provider for your home is a decision based on trust and technical capability. You need a team that views a garage door not just as a barrier, but as a complex machine that protects your family and property. We prioritize transparency in every interaction. When we recommend a part replacement during a maintenance visit, we show you exactly why it failed, whether it’s a bearing that has seized or a cable that is holding on by a single thread.

Our technicians arrive prepared to address many issues during the visit, ready to restore your system’s performance. If a tune-up reveals a broken hinge or a stripped gear, we discuss repair options that can often be completed during the appointment. This efficiency respects your time and restores your home’s security without unnecessary delays.

Safety is our absolute baseline. Garage doors are under immense tension and can cause severe injury if mishandled. Every technician is trained to handle high-tension torsion springs and electrical systems safely. We adhere to strict safety protocols to protect your property and our staff during the maintenance process.

We focus on the long-term health of your system. We aren’t looking for a quick fix, we are looking to establish a baseline of reliability for your door. By keeping detailed records of your maintenance history, we can predict when parts will reach the end of their lifecycle, allowing you to budget for replacements rather than reacting to problems.

Assessing Your Garage Door Hardware

During our visits, we pay close attention to the specific hardware configuration of your door. Different doors utilize different lift mechanisms, and each requires a specific maintenance approach.

• Torsion Springs: Located above the door, these are the most common in modern homes. They require precise lubrication and tensioning. A dry torsion spring makes a distinct clanking sound and is more prone to snapping. We wipe the coils clean and apply a specific lubricant that penetrates between the coils to reduce friction and noise.
• Extension Springs: Located alongside the tracks, these stretch and contract. They require safety cables running through the center. If we find extension springs without safety cables, we flag this immediately as a critical safety hazard. Without a containment cable, a snapping spring becomes a dangerous projectile.
• Rollers: We identify whether you have plastic, steel, or nylon rollers. Plastic rollers degrade quickly in the heat. Steel rollers are durable but noisy. We often recommend upgrading to sealed nylon rollers during maintenance, as they offer the quietest operation and longevity, standing up well to the Phelan climate.
• Drums and Cables: The drums at the top of the door shaft must be free of cracks. The cables must wind evenly into the grooves. Uneven winding causes the door to tilt. We ensure the cables are spooling correctly and that the drums are securely keyed to the shaft.

The Impact of Neglect on Opener Logic Boards

Modern garage door openers are computerized. The logic board is the brain of the operation. When a door is poorly maintained and becomes heavy or sticky, the opener works harder. This draws more current through the logic board. 

Symptoms of a failing logic board include the door opening randomly, remotes losing their programming, or the opener humming but not moving. By maintaining the physical balance of the door, we protect the electronic brain of the opener. It is much cheaper to lubricate a door than to replace a damaged circuit board. We check the capacitor and the condition of the drive gear during our service to ensure the motor is transferring power efficiently.

Securing Your Perimeter

A maintained garage door is a secure garage door. A door that doesn’t close all the way due to limit switch drift is an invitation to intruders. A door with a gap at the bottom due to a worn astragal, bottom seal, invites rodents. Our maintenance ensures the door creates a solid barrier against the outside world.

We verify that the slide lock, if present, is not engaging automatically, which can damage the opener if it tries to lift a locked door. If you have an electric opener, we usually disable the manual slide lock or install a switch to prevent this conflict. We also check the emergency release handle to ensure it hasn’t been tied off or removed, ensuring you can still open the door manually during a power outage, a relevant concern during high-wind events that may affect the local grid.

Final Thoughts on Home Safety

Your garage door serves as the primary entrance for most modern households. It operates multiple times a day, every day. It deserves the same level of attention as your HVAC system or your vehicle. Ignoring the warning signs of grinding noises or slow operation only leads to inconvenience and potential danger.

By investing in preventive maintenance, you are investing in the safety of your family and the longevity of your home’s assets. Don’t wait for the spring to snap or the motor to burn out. Let Good Golly Garage Doors bring your system back to peak performance. Secure your home and silence that squeaky door, contact us.