Winter is coming, and you (and your garage door) need to be prepared. Cold weather conditions can damage your garage door, especially if it’s a wooden garage door, so you’ll need to take appropriate measures. Here’s what you need to know about how to safeguard your garage door in the winter:
Insulation & Weatherstripping
If your garage door doesn’t have any insulation, then your home’s HVAC will have to work extra hard to keep your house warm, because all the heated air will escape through your garage door. To avoid this, you can install insulation on your garage door and walls (just make sure you choose an insulation material with a high R-Value, as this means better insulation). However, your best option is to replace your old, worn out, non-insulated garage door with a new, fully-insulated garage door.
In addition, the weatherstripping around your garage door should also be in perfect conditions, or the energy efficiency of your garage will plummet. Besides, when there’s frozen water near your closed garage door, the weatherstripping can stick to the ground and peel off when you open your garage door. You’ll need to replace the weatherstripping in order to prevent these problems.
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Routine Maintenance
Your garage door possesses hundreds of metal moving parts that need lubrication. Extreme cold and winter moisture creates problems with these moving parts, and stuck garage doors are very common in winter times.
Before winter comes, you need to take a couple minutes to carefully inspect your garage door. If you notice a problem during your inspection, then you’ll need to call a professional garage door repair service
Also, it’s important to lubricate your garage door’s moving parts with light lithium-based grease (not regular grease). Besides, you should also take the time to clean your garage door tracks… because leaves, dirt, and cobwebs can impair the normal operation of your garage door.
Take Advantage of the Old-Fashioned Shovel
Buildup of snow and ice can put extra weight and pressure on your garage door… and it can damage the paint of the door, cause dents, and make your garage door opener work extra hard in order to open the door. Naturally, these conditions can seriously reduce the life expectancy of your garage door, and may even make you spend a couple hundred dollars in repairs.
To avoid this, when you’re shoveling the snow accumulated around your garage door, make sure you shovel all the way to the ground’s surface, so you allow the sun to heat the ground and prevent water from refreezing around your garage door.
These three easy tips will help you keep your garage door in excellent conditions even in a harsh winter. However, should your garage door suffer any kind of damage during this winter, then you can depend on Hudson Valley Overhead Doors and Operators’ expert team of garage door installation and repair professionals. When you’re in need of fast and effective garage door repair services in the Hudson Valley, just call (845) 876-2772.
Hudson Valley Overhead Doors and Operators has been providing professional garage door installation and service in the Hudson Valley for more than two decades. A few of the services Hudson Valley Overhead Doors and Operators provides are LaGrange Garage Doors, Milan Garage Doors, Germantown Garage Doors, Hudson Garage Doors, Somers Garage Doors, and Yorktown Heights Garage Doors.