If your doors appear to be uneven, it may be because your garage door is unbalanced. This is something you should know for sure so that you can rectify the problem. If left unattended it can cause damage to your tracks. By doing something about the problem now, you can eliminate more costly garage door repairs in the future. An unbalanced door can be caused by various factors.
Most Common Cause of Unbalanced Door
The most common cause of your garage door being unbalanced is because of a problem with the springs and cables. With anything that we purchase, there is a life expectancy or cycle. This means, there is a certain amount of time that they will perform their job before they need to be replaced or repaired. In this case, a torsion spring has a life cycle of approximately 5 years or roughly around 7,500 cycles. The cycle is calculated by the number of times the doors are opened and closed. Each time is counted as 1 cycle. Once the spring has reached this number, it will start to lose tension. This means that the doors are becoming too heavy for the spring. The more you lift the door with a weak spring, the more your door will begin to shift and become unbalanced. This is one of the main reasons it is important to have regular routine maintenance performed on your garage door. It will help by making sure that once the spring begins to loosen, they can be repaired. This will help keep the door from becoming unbalanced.
Now as for the cables, they may not wear out but they can become lose. Once they loosen this can cause them to get spun up around other parts of your door. When this occurs, it will undoubtedly cause other issues.
Is Your Garage Door Unbalanced?
A technician may determine if your doors are unbalanced by doing the following:
- If you have an electric opener, it will need to first be disconnected;
- They will partially open your door and release it;
- If the door does not slowly lower back to the ground, this means your doors are fine;
- If the door begins to slowly move back to the ground, it is likely that the doors are unbalanced.
If it has been determined that you have a problem with an unleveled or unbalanced garage door, resolve the problem quickly to avoid additional problems.