Give it a second thought

Your garage door, typically the largest and heaviest moving object in your home, works without any complaints and is at your command with the press of a button. Give it some attention.

Larry Golay, who has been giving garage doors attention since 1982, owns Upright Garage Door Services in Henderson.

“Regular garage door maintenance should be done once a year,” said Golay. “By that I mean someone who looks at all the bearings and springs and just makes sure its operating properly. Usually this amounts to minor adjustment on the torsion shaft bearings. Then the homeowner can lubricate the bearings about every three months since it’s so dry here.”

Golay said homeowners should always listen to their garage doors.

“Once the door is operating properly, it should move up and down quietly and efficiently,” he said. “There should be no added noise. Any unusual noise probably means something is wrong.”

Besides making it easy to get in and out of your home, automatic garage doors are a safety investment.

“If you have to get out of your car to open the garage, you’re exposing yourself to anybody who is outside,” said Scott Humes who has been at K&B Door Co. in Las Vegas for 35 years. “If you drive in, you simply close the door behind you. All garage door openers today are random rotators which means it rotates to a new code each time. So every time you press the button, it’s a new code. Even if someone gets your code, it has already rotated to a new one and there are a billion codes.”

Humes points out that garage doors have become larger on newer homes (from 7 feet high to 8 feet to accommodate sport utility vehicles) have better insulation and have become Internet savvy.

“You can go anywhere in the world and check if your garage door is open or closed,” he explained. “For instance, if you leave the house and inadvertently leave the door open, it will send a text message to your cell phone saying your garage door is open. You can text back telling it to close.”

Both Humes and Golay advise homeowners to learn how to release and raise the door manually. Both also suggest that when dealing with someone who is about to repair your garage door make sure all work is inclusive.

“Too often people call and tell us we’re $100 more than the other guy after we have quoted a price,” said Humes. “But our price will include taking off or hauling away an old door, reattaching the operators, making all adjustments, or rehanging if it is a different type of door. We include everything in the total price. The work should not be an a la carte menu. Call around and compare apples to apples.”