A loud garage door can be very irritating, intruding upon your peace and testing your patience. Although the noisiness may be disturbing, what’s more concerning is that unusual sounds generally indicate underlying issues with the door or opener that need to be taken care of.
If your garage door squeaks, grinds, rattles, pops, or makes other strange noises, you need to get to the bottom of the issue. Keep reading for troubleshooting tips that will help you figure out what is wrong with your noisy garage door.
Before You Get Started
Ensure that you take the necessary safety precautions before working in your garage. Disconnect the garage door opener so that nobody opens or closes the garage while you’re trying to source the issue. And, don’t perform any tasks that could put you at risk of injury. For difficult and dangerous maintenance and repair tasks, always call in a professional.
SQUEAKING
If your garage door is producing high-pitched squeaks, chances are you can silence them with some lubricant. Be sure to thoroughly grease the rollers and tracks and to apply a silicone-based lubricant to the weather stripping placed at the bottom of the door, in between the panels, and around the frame of the garage door.
GRINDING
Poorly lubricated or worn-out rollers will sometimes produce a grinding noise. Try applying a lubricant to quiet things down. If that doesn’t work, the rollers are likely worn and you’ll need to get them replaced by a professional. If you have metal rollers, consider swapping them with nylon ones. They’re quieter and don’t need to be lubricated as often.
The hinges on garage doors can also create grinding or screeching noises if they’re worn out. Inspect them closely. If they’re worn out or have cracks, they present a safety hazard and will need to be replaced right away. If the hinges are still in good condition, you can usually quiet them down with a lithium-based grease. If you can't find one, a silicone-based grease will also work. We don't recommend WD-40 as this product actually removes the grease rather than adding lubrication.
However, never adjust, repair, or remove hinges yourself. If you remove the bottom bracket, your garage door could come crashing down. Always call in a professional if you need to replace your hinges and for all garage door repairs.
RATTLING
Your garage door is made up of dozens of nuts, bolts, and screws, and the vibrations of the garage door can cause them to become loose over time. When this happens, the entire door will start rattling. Fortunately, you can easily tighten all this hardware with a wrench and socket set.
However, you should never adjust hardware or parts connected to your garage’s spring system. These springs are under extremely high tension and can cause injury or even death if handled improperly, so always call a professional garage door expert.
If you have a garage door opener that uses a chain drive, this is another potential source of rattling. Generally the issue is that the chain has become too loose. If this occurs, you’ll need to call a garage door repair technician to tighten it.
If the chain drive is in good condition and isn’t loose, the rattling might be silenced by applying lubricant. Refer to the owner’s manual before doing so, as your particular make and model might require a specific type.
Note also that chain drive openers are invariably louder than belt drive openers. So, if you want to minimize noise and you don’t already have a belt drive opener, you may want to make the switch.
POPPING NOISES
Are you hearing popping noises when you open and close your garage door? If so, they may be coming from the torsion spring. Over time, torsion springs will begin to lock up and will subsequently produce loud popping sounds.
If the torsion spring is still in good condition, applying a lubricant may do the trick. However, given that the spring will need to be handled to do so, it’s best to leave this task to the professionals. As earlier mentioned, adjusting torsion springs is very dangerous, so always call a professional and never do this work yourself.
Garage door repair and maintenance across Western Canada
If your garage door is still making a racket after performing the above mentioned troubleshooting procedures, then let the team at Creative Door Services take the reins. Our experienced technicians can get to the bottom of just about any garage door issue. And, all the products we use measure up to our high standards. For more information, or to make an appointment, contact our team today.