Bailey’s Garage Doors

A Noisy or Shuddering Garage Door

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It’s common for garage doors to need regular maintenance, but even with a consistent maintenance schedule, the hardware on the garage door can become loose or begin to wear out.  Usually you will know the hardware is damaged or loose, because the garage door will shudder in its track, or it may even get stuck halfway up (a stuck garage door is also a symptom for other door problems).  Think of it as a garage door tune-up, and here are a few ways to do it.

First, with the garage door in the closed position (if someone might accidentally turn on the garage door while you are working on it, it may be wise to disconnect the garage door opener) tighten down all of the hardware.  Usually the hardware that causes the most trouble will be near the track, where the continual jarring of the door moving up and down may loosen it.  A socket set and a wrench should be the right tools for the job.  However, be sure, when you are tightening down the hardware, that you don’t over tighten any of the screws or bolts, because this could strip the threads.

If the door is especially noisy near the track, it may be time to replace the rollers and the hinges.  For most people this will be a job for professionals, and the garage door technicians at Bailey Garage Door can certainly handle this job.  If you choose to do this yourself, you can contact Bailey Garage Doors for the necessary hardware for the job.  Use caution if you are replacing the rollers, and only replace one roller at a time.  If your door has tension springs at the header, a job like this can be dangerous, and you should refer to a professional to do the job.  Mishandling tension springs could cost you serious injury.

Garage Doors like the kind found at Bailey’s can last for years if kept up with regular maintenance.  If you think that your garage door is having problems, and you have been unable to diagnose the problem yourself, call Bailey Garage Doors, and rely on the experience of their garage door technicians.

 

 

 

 

Garage Door Springs Billings MT

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A Garage Door’s spring is a mechanical component to the garage door, and because of the pressures placed upon it to both raise and lower the door, the springs will eventually go bad. The problem with garage door springs is that it’s not the easiest component to fix. As we’ve talked about here before, because of the pressures behind those springs, for the amateur, or even professional for that matter, those springs can represent serious bodily pain, loss of limb or maybe even life. It’s best to call a professional if you don’t have either the knowledge or practice replacing these springs.Garage Door Springs Billings MT

When a spring does break, it could be at the worst possible time—when you are hoping to leave for work, school, etc. You will know a spring has broken when the garage door wont open or close—this could also be a sign of other problems such as a faulty garage door opener, etc., and the list of ways in which to troubleshoot a stuck garage door can be found in February’s blog post. If you’ve determined that the spring is at fault, call a professional technician at Bailey’s Garage Door. If you continue to try and engage the spring by continuing to try to open and close the garage door, it could do severe damage to the door.

So, how do you prevent this moment in time in which you’re stuck with a broken garage door, hoping that a Garage Door Technician is available soon! There may have been warning signs before the door became stuck, warning signs that you could have caught early, and avoided the stuck disaster. Unfortunately, however, garage door springs wont break in standard ways, but often it might provide clues as to its wear. Firstly, if your garage door is stopping as it’s opening or closing this could be a sign of a damaged spring. Check the springs when the door is fully closed, and look for any noticeable damage or wear to the spring. Another clue is how the door is situated in the opening. Is the door crooked? Does it seem to be off its track? These could be definite clues that point to a faulty spring. Also, there’s the standard practice of if it looks broke then fix it! If there’s noticeable wear, or if you’ve had a simple accident such as backing into the door, or clipping the door with your car as you passed underneath, this would be a definite time to have the springs checked, and, possibly, replaced. You don’t want to find yourself with your car stuck in or just outside the garage at a time of emergency.

For all of your garage doors needs, please contact Bailey Doors today!

Update Your Garage Door For Curb Appeal

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Say it’s time to sell your home. Your looking through every room, making sure everything is in order. You look outside, check the landscape’s grade, water and trim the grass. While the inside of the home is important: it’s where potential buyers are looking to spend all of their time; consider the front or the face of the home: is it leaving an impression? Does it feel welcoming to potential buyers, lifting their spirits before they step inside? Curb-appeal is important. It’s not everything in a home sale, but it sets the tone. What shape is your garage door in?

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Today’s real estate market is steady: it’s rising—for now anyway—and potential sellers are faced with considerable inventory still backlogged from a time when people struggled to sell homes for bottom-barrel prices. So, it’s important that a potential home stand out from the rest. A quality garage door from Bailey Garage Doors, grinning bright and new like a bright-white smile, greeting potential buyers, would seem to go far in today’s market. And, it may also set a home apart on price.

Also, is the door opener functioning properly? Are the safety measures such as the safety sensors functioning properly? This is important to new buyers: most buyers don’t want to buy a home they’ll have to invest considerable extra money for repairs. Check the safety sensors. The lights on the sensors should be green. Place an object in the way of the sensors and try to close the door. If the sensors are in working condition, the door wont be able to close properly on the object. Make sure to keep your hand on the opener switch, however, if the sensors are out of alignment, and the door closes without activating its sensors. Also, make sure that the door both recedes back up into the track and descends back into a closed position smoothly. If there’s a mechanical issue with the door, give a professional a call. Many garage door parts like a broken spring are best fixed by someone with the knowledge to do so, because the components are under such pressures that if mishandled it could cause serious injury or even death.  Call Bailey Doors today for all of your garage door needs! (406) 656-2905

Is Your Garage Door Sticking?

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A garage door can get stuck—up, down, halfway—and, when it’s stuck, do you know how to get it moving again? Of course, by the laws of nature, the garage door will stick at the worst time: when your late for work, with a car full of kids on a freezing day, or when you’re on your way to an important dinner. Even the most well-built garage door, cared for with regular maintenance, can get stuck. The first step is to diagnose the problem: is the door stuck a fault of the opener? Or is it with the door itself?

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If the garage door opener has caused the garage door to stick, the door will retreat when the emergency cord is pulled. The emergency cord disengages the electronic garage door opener. This is a safety precaution built into the garage door. Try to move the door by hand—a half open door should be handled with extreme caution, as a falling garage door can be a very serious, threatening thing—if the door moves easily in the track, it’s the opener. If, however, the door remains stuck in position, it’s the door itself.

It could be as simple as an obstruction in the door’s track. Check the track, the area near the rollers, etc. for any possible catches. Loose hardware, such as a screw, could have fallen between the roller and the track.

There are many things that can affect a garage door from opening properly. Weather changes, a broken spring or pulley, or even an obstruction can be culprits. Most times, when the door is stuck, it is best to call a garage door professional. The garage door professional can temper with a force-adjustment mechanism that applied to the door. If you are unsure of the proper tensioning of these adjustment mechanisms, you could cause the door to fail to stop when it should and this could cause injury or death.

 Springs and Pulleys are best left to the pros. Springs are very dangerous to repair or replace if you don’t know what you are doing, because they are held up under great tension.

If you have any questions about how to handle a stuck garage door, it’s best to call a pro, but, with this simple checklist, you may be able to determine the cause much quicker.

Garage Door Safety

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The garage door can be responsible for protecting some of the most valuable or valued things in our home: woodworking workshops and other tools, motorcycles and half rebuilt cars, or maybe even just a place to store our memories, the garage is an important area of the home. Because most garage doors are so big and seem so solid, this is an area of the home that people often overlook to protect. Burglars can enter the garage just like they can any other part of the home. A few simple precautions will prohibit most burglaries to the garage from happening.

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Garage doors are opened daily, and, unlike the rest of our home, when the garage door is opened anyone with a view from the street is aware of the things we keep in the garage. People often forget to close the garage door when they leave, or maybe they have a forgetful teenager to blame, either way, keeping that door closed is paramount to prevent any crimes of opportunity from taking place. Your garage door technician can install a timer that will close your garage door for you after a predetermined amount of time. This will not forgo the safety mechanism put in place on the garage door like the garage door safety sensors, which prevent any accidental closure on people or objects (assuming that the safety sensors are working correctly). The timer has an override option if you wish for the door to remain open while you work, clean, etc.

When you are going on vacation, you should unplug your garage door opener. And, with the opener unplugged, you can put a padlock on the latch or run a metal bolt through a hole in the track to ensure that the door will not be opened from the outside.

Another thing that many people forget about is the garage door opener on the visor of their vehicle. That opener is hidden behind just a pane of glass. Remember to take the opener in the house with you, especially removing it from the vehicle if you are on vacation and the vehicle is going to be parked outside of the home.

 

 

 

Common Garage Door Problems In The Winter

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The cold weather of winter is here. The snow is on the ground, people are out shopping in stores that play jingle bells on continuous, others tether bright flashing lights from their rain gutters and plant a big light up Santa with Reindeer in the yard. The beginning of winter means the cheery holiday season, but it can also have far less cheery connotations for your home’s garage doors. Cold weather is a likely culprit for garage door failure. Cold temperatures—below 35 degrees—can cause the oil that lubricates the garage door motor to thicken and the motor could seize. Also, cold weather could cause the metal parts that make a garage door function—leaf springs, screws, tracks, and other metal components—seize up, because the cold air cause the metal parts to contract. Also, a Garage doors springs have a good likelihood of breaking during the cold months.

Another common issue in winter is the possible fogging of the Garage Door sensors (sensors that project a beam of light, that, when broken, stalls out the descent of the garage door to prevent accidental closure on a person or things). Make sure that the sensors are fog free and also that everything is out of the path of the sensors. Often, people have a tendency to keep items like the snow shovel near the front of the garage for easy access.

Also, when the weather is warmer during the day and the snow and ice melt, water can get under the garage door and refreeze as soon as the temperatures drop back down. This can freeze the garage door down onto the pavement. The door may still open when the opener is pressed, but the ice may tear away the seal at the bottom of the door. This component can be replaced and, or, if its undamaged, put back into place. Make sure before you open the door that the door is not frozen down. you wouldn’t want to be caught in the predicament of having to leave an open, damaged garage door.  If you are experiencing garage door problems this winter, please contact Bailey Garage Doors today!

CHI Garage Doors

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Bailey Garage Doors sells and installs CHI Garage Doors. CHI has a plethora of design options for garage doors that range from dark, dramatic stained wood to the whimsical logo of your favorite baseball team.   Needless to say, today’s homeowner has many, many stylistic options to increase curb appeal or possibly display his or her personality with prominence.

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Wood garage doors are beautiful, although garage doors made entirely of wood do require upkeep, and are not as durable as doors built of steel. Wood Accent Garage doors, by CHI, provide the natural look of wood, giving your home that curbside look of sophistication and warmth, although the doors are not made entirely of wood. The Accents Wood Grain finishes make the door appear as if it is made of wood, but it is entirely built of steel. This allows the homeowner to have the best of both worlds, in a sense: the look of wood and the durability of steel. The Wood Accent Garage Door is available in the colors: Cedar, Mahogany, Light Oak, and Dark Oak. CHI also offers a wood plank look, which is available in the same four different color options as the Accents Wood Grain finished doors.

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CHI Garage Doors also makes garage doors with a displayed image. These images allow the homeowner to display their true personality. The images are based on the following four categories: Destinations, Patriotic, Sportsman, and Patterns. In the category of the Sportsman, for instance, you will find an image of a golf scene: serene, bright green fairway with the putting green, pin, and hole shown far in the distance, or an image of dawn on a lake and two men (seen only as black outlines in the new morning light) are casting fishing poles from a boat out into the lake. The Patriotic images include American Flags, and bald eagles, while the Pattern option has unique designs and even camouflage. CHI can also place your favorite Major League Baseball team’s logo on the front of the garage door, so the rest of the neighborhood will have little doubt to which team you cheer for.

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DIY Garage Workshops

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The DIY (Do It Yourself) motto of home improvement and design is catching on in popularity. With the numerous television programs that demonstrate home renovation, to the classes being offered at the big box home improvement stores, and the vast amount of content online, in both written, and cinematic form – You tube has become one of the most popular choices for both the professionals and the not-so professionals to post how-to videos. But, all of that building equipment has to go somewhere, and for those of you not willing to keep the table saw in your kitchen, it is bound to end up in a space like the garage. Garages are the best storage option in most homes, and, because of the unfinished nature of the garage, homeowners don’t mind shutting the door on a dirty garage. When the garage needs to be cleaned, the concrete pad on the floor cleans easily.

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Garage workshops can be as simple as two sawhorses and a crosscut hand saw to a full mechanical and electrical woodworking shop. Either way, the tools within that shop will need to be protected. An intensive home woodworking shop may have everything from expensive motor driven saws to air circulation and dust collection. The garage door is all that stands between all of that expensive equipment and the outside. If the garage door is broken, or if the garage door isn’t equipped with the necessary safety features, those tools could be at risk.

Modern Garage door openers have helped to prevent break-ins from thieves. In the past, thieves could drive down a street pressing the button on a garage door opener, and if they drove past someone with the same garage door opener as they had, the door would open. Now, garage door transmitters are built for the opener. When the button on the transmitter is pressed, a code is sent to the garage door opener. There are over a billion codes that relay between the transmitter and the opener, so it is a low risk that someone could easily determine what code to use to open the door.

Garage Door Opener Maintenance

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Like any major appliance in the home the garage door and the garage door opener should be regularly maintained to prevent poor service or possible failure. To begin maintenance, tell everyone in the home your plan to work on the garage door or opener to prevent any possible injury. The first step to garage door maintenance is simple: stand inside the garage with the garage door closed; inspect the springs, rollers, pulleys and all of the mounting hardware for both the garage door and the opener. If there are any signs of damage or noticeable wear to these components, it may be time to call your garage door professional to replace the damaged or worn components (Remember garage doors are held up under a lot of tension, and a trained professional should be called to replace damaged hardware to prevent any possible injury to the homeowner).

The balance of the garage door should also be regularly checked to ensure the garage door is opening and closing with no resistance along its track. With the garage door closed, disconnect the automatic door opener, and, with the automatic door opener disconnected, lift the garage door manually into an open position. If the door moves smoothly and freely into the upward position, the door is in alignment. If, however, the door catches and drags on the rails, a trained garage door technician should properly service the door.

The garage door’s reversing mechanism – devices which have been added to all garage doors built after 1993 and are responsible for the prevention of the possible entrapment of a person under the garage door – should also be tested regularly. To test the door’s reversing mechanism, open the garage door and place a two by four on the garage floor directly in the path of the garage door. With the two by four in place, close the garage door onto it. When the garage door falls on the two by four and makes contact, the garage door should retreat back up on the track into the open position. If the door does not immediately retract, call your garage door service technician to fix the reversing mechanism.

On a final note, a small amount of lubrication can be added to all of the garage doors moving parts. Make sure that the garage door is either in a fully opened or closed position while working on the garage door, and stand clear of the garage door and all of the moving parts when the garage door is activated.

Why You May Need A New Garage Door

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While a new garage door may not seem like a wise investment for your home (your garage door works just fine and if its not broke why fix it right?) and the new doors being built today, at least on the outside, appear to look just like your old trusty garage door; take a closer look, because they are much more improved. For instance, today’s garage doors, at least most models, are made of steel, and that steel is backed by high rigid foam insulation. This means that these new doors are considerably better insulating then their predecessors. Most new garage doors also have a baked on primer and polyester topcoat, and, while those terms seem like industry jargon to the average homeowner, the terms mean that the garage doors that are coated in these materials will have a great amount of rust protection.

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If in your home you have a room above the garage, and many of today’s newly constructed homes do include a room above the garage, an insulated garage door makes perfect sense. A well insulated steel door will both help keep out the cold, and, because of the doors rigidity, it will have considerably less vibration when the door is raised or lowered.

Safety is another issue with garage doors, especially in homes where children are at play, running in and out of the garage. Legislation backed by the federal government requires all new garage doors to include safety additions like an automatic reverse. The automatic reverse functions exactly as it sounds: if something comes in contact with the edge of the garage door, then the door will quit its decent downwards and retract back up into the track. Also, new doors are equipped with a laser eye system, and this system, which is comprised of two small boxes placed on either side of the garage door that emit a light beam between them, to send a closing garage door back up into the tracks when the beam of light is broken.

Also, the newer garage doors, with their numerous designs, add significant curb appeal to any home. Newer window treatments for garage doors, for the homeowner who wants to add them, also add significant style to the home.