How do I service an up-and-over garage door?

Garage doors get no maintenance at all until something goes wrong, which is a shame because they respond to it better than almost anything else in a garden. Most of what makes an old door heavy, noisy and difficult is dry pivots, gritty tracks and loose fixings, all of which take half an hour to put right.

Safety

What you'll need

• Light machine oil for pivots and hinges
• Silicone or PTFE spray for tracks and locks
• Cloths and a stiff brush
• Spanner and screwdriver set
• Torch
• Step ladder
• Touch-up paint or exterior finish (optional)

Step by step

1. Start with the balance test.Open the door to about halfway, stand to one side, and let go. A balanced door stays roughly put. If it falls or rises sharply, the counterbalance needs attention from an engineer and the rest of this service will not fix it.
2. Clean the tracks properly.Brush and wipe both tracks along their full length, inside and out. Grit in a track is what wears rollers and makes a door graunch. Clean and dry is what you want, not greasy.
3. Check the tracks for damage and alignment.Look along each track for dents, twists and loose fixings. The tracks should be parallel and their brackets solid. A track that has been knocked by a car bumper is a common and easily missed cause of a sticking door.
4. Check and lubricate every roller.Each roller should spin freely by hand. Flat spots, cracks and seized bearings all mean replacement — rollers are inexpensive. A light silicone spray on the stems and bearings, wiped off where it would collect dust.
5. Oil the pivots, hinges and arms.Every point where metal turns on metal — the lifting arm pivots, the hinge points, the lock mechanism's linkages. A drop of light machine oil at each, worked in by operating the door a few times, and the excess wiped off.
6. Look at the springs and cables without touching them.A visual check only: broken coils, a spring longer than its pair, frayed or kinked cable, a cable off a drum or pulley. Anything abnormal is a call to an engineer, not a job for today.
7. Check every fixing into the frame and the wall.The door's frame is fixed into masonry and the whole assembly hangs on those fixings. Go round and tighten. Then check the timber frame itself for rot, particularly at the bottom of the uprights where they meet the floor.
8. Service the lock and the handle.A PTFE or graphite lubricant in the barrel — not oil, which gums up with dust — and light oil on the latch mechanism and the locking bars. Check both locking bars engage fully into their keeps at the sides; a bar that only just engages is a security weakness and a source of a door that will not lock in cold weather.
9. Check the weather seals and the bottom edge.The seal along the bottom, and any brush or blade seals at the sides. Replace anything perished. Look at the bottom edge of the door itself for rust or rot — it is the wettest part of the whole assembly.
10. Finish the surface if it needs it.Touch up any rust on a steel door or any bare timber before it spreads. On a steel door, rust starting at the bottom edge is the beginning of the end and it is worth catching early.
11. If there is an opener, test its safety reversal.Place a solid object — a block of timber, not a hand — in the door's path and close it. The door must reverse on contact. If it does not, the force setting or the safety system needs attention and the door should not be used with the opener until it does.

Tips

• Do this in autumn. A door that is serviced going into winter is a door that still locks in February.
• Silicone or PTFE on tracks, oil on pivots, graphite or PTFE in the lock barrel. Using oil everywhere gums the lock and turns the tracks into a grit trap.
• Operate the door several times after lubricating, then wipe the excess. Lubricant left on the surface collects dust and ends up on cars and clothes.
• Keep a note of when the springs were last replaced. It is the one component with a defined life and nobody ever remembers.
• If the door is noisy rather than heavy, it is almost always rollers and dry pivots. Half an hour transforms it.

Common mistakes

• Greasing the tracks — Thick grease holds grit against the rollers, which wears both. Tracks want to be clean and dry with at most a light dry-film lubricant.
• Oiling the lock barrel — Oil attracts dust and gums a lock up over a season. Barrels take a dry lubricant — PTFE or graphite.
• Spraying lubricant on springs as maintenance — It does nothing useful for spring fatigue and it can mask a broken coil under a film of oil and dirt. Look at them instead.
• Skipping the balance test — It is the one check that finds a developing counterbalance problem before it becomes a door that falls. It takes ten seconds.

Keeping on top of it

• Balance test — lift halfway and release (Every three months)
• Clean tracks, oil pivots and hinges, spray rollers (Twice a year)
• Check and tighten all frame and track fixings (Yearly)
• Lubricate the lock barrel and check both locking bars engage (Yearly, before winter)
• Check the bottom edge and seals for rust, rot and perishing (Yearly)
• Test an opener's safety reversal (Every three months)

Questions people ask