Garage Door Repairs, Should You DIY?

If you’re a particularly handy homeowner, you might be thinking about DIY-ing your garage door repairs, too. But DIY-ing your garage door repairs usually isn’t the best idea, even if it’s a repair or alteration that you think is particularly simple.

There are a few very critical reasons why DIY garage door maintenance is generally not recommended:

Garage Doors Have Many Moving Parts

Any machine that has moving parts is inherently dangerous. Not only can a garage door fall on a person, but it can also cause pinching injuries. Garage doors may move unexpectedly when being worked on, which can cause injury — and DIYers could potentially cause more damage than they resolve if they accidentally move the door while repairing it. Because a garage door has so many moving parts, everything needs to be able to work well and in tandem for the garage door to actually function. Garage door technicians have many years of experience and training in order to be able to guarantee that a garage door will work.

Garage Doors Are Extremely Precise

If a garage door is off on its alignment, it may not function properly. In fact, it may come down off its track altogether. Garage doors may appear to be simple, but they’re also developed with quite a lot of precision. Something as simple as improperly tightening a garage door wheel could lead to the garage door failing to close entirely. And this isn’t just the basic components of the machine. Garage doors also include mechanical sensors and a mechanical pulley system, which also has to operate precisely and effectively for the garage door to be safe.

Garage Doors Are Heavier Than You Think

Anyone who has had to manually manipulate a garage door knows that a garage door is actually fairly heavy. This makes moving and repairing a garage door on your own extremely challenging. Even though you may be able to fairly easily lift and lower the garage door, you need to consider emergency situations. Would your family members be able to lift the garage door off of you? Would you be able to catch the garage door if it began to fall on you? When dealing with a device that may be acting inconsistently and could potentially fail at any time, its weight and mass is incredibly important. Garage doors that are improperly repaired can even fall down from their fully open position from the garage ceiling, something that could be disastrous if a person or even a car is underneath them.

Garage Doors Aren’t Expensive to Fix

Perhaps the most compelling reason not to DIY your own garage door repair is that professional services are comparatively very inexpensive. Garage doors tend to have fairly common parts, so you rarely need to look for the parents or wait for them. Garage door technicians can fix many problems within a matter of hours, and many simpler problems (such as alignment issues) can be fixed in minutes. This is compared to the much longer amount of time a DIYer may need to spend figuring out the mechanism and attempting to fix the problem safely themselves. A good garage door technician will be able to quickly determine the issue, price out a quote, and fix the problem all at once.

Essentially, professional garage door maintenance is fast, affordable, and convenient — there’s really nothing to be gained by attempting the process itself. DIY-ing repairs around your home is usually beneficial only when those repairs would save you a lot of money or time, which simply isn’t the case with a garage door. Further, garage doors can be extremely dangerous when they are broken or malfunction. If you do need a garage door repaired, it’s better for you to call the professionals. At Action Garage Door we can provide complete repair and replacement services throughout TX.

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