Update Your Garage Door For Curb Appeal

March 8, 2016 / doorsmt / Leave a comment

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

Garage Door Safety

January 6, 2016January 6, 2016 / doorsmt / Leave a comment

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.

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

December 7, 2015 / doorsmt / Leave a comment

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!

DIY Garage Workshops

October 12, 2015October 12, 2015 / doorsmt / Leave a comment

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.

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

August 16, 2015 / doorsmt / Leave a comment

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

July 7, 2015 / doorsmt / Leave a comment

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.

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.

Garage Door Openers

June 9, 2015 / doorsmt / Leave a comment

Not all garage door openers operate the same. The opener is one way for the homeowner to customize their own garage door to their needs. Bailey Garage Doors carries three types of garage door openers: Screw Drive, Chain Drive, and Belt Drive openers. Bailey Garage Doors also carries the standard models as well as the premium and high-performance models. All of our models of openers are equipped with PosiLock, which secures the door when it is down, preventing intruders from opening the garage door from the outside. And, all of our openers come with the Protector System, which projects a beam of light under the door, and if anything breaks that beam, the door will not close, preventing the door from falling on a person or object.

The screw drive opener rides on a trolley that moves up and down a steel rod. The screw drive openers operate with much less force than other models. There are many advantages to the screw drive openers, and the main advantage is its simplicity. There are very few moving parts that the homeowner will need to maintain over the life of the opener.

Chain Drive openers are the most common and oldest of the garage door openers. The opener operates the door up and down by turning a chain (similar in appearance and operation to a bicycle chain) with one end of the chain connected to a part called the J-Arm, which is attached to the garage door itself, with the other end attached to the trolley. Chain drives are also the most economical garage door opener, and, while older chain drive garage door openers were loud, newer technology has quieted the starting and stopping motion of these openers.

Belt Drives are the quietest of the openers, and they operate in the same way as the chain drive openers. Instead of the chain, a belt is used. The belt drive has a sleek appearance, and, because the belt itself is made of a fiberglass, reinforced rubber, the vibrations caused from starting and stopping the garage door is greatly reduced.

All garage doors openers have pros and cons, and a homeowner should give preference to which opener fits both his lifestyle and his style.

Garage Door Safety Sensors

May 13, 2015 / doorsmt / Leave a comment

Garage doors require several electronic components to operate, and when these components age they may need to be serviced. Bailey Garage Doors is one of the leading garage door sales in Montana, and while the garage door is a reliable addition in any home, it receives significant use. In all things with mechanical components, those components will need to be serviced at some point. One of the most common serviceable components for a garage door is the safety sensor. These sensors prevent the garage door from closing upon a person or an item that has been placed under the path of the closing door.

A common sign that the sensors need to be serviced or replaced occurs when the garage door will open properly by touching the wall switch, but when the switch is pressed to close the garage door, the door will start down the track a short distance and then retreat back into an open position. Holding down the switch may close a garage door with a faulty sensor, although the sensors will no longer prevent the door from closing upon someone or something.

Trouble Shooting

The garage can be a dusty place, and when dust covers the sensor it may not work properly. If the sensor appears dirty, wipe it clean with a clean cloth or paper towel. Another common problem with safety sensors is misalignment. The garage is a very busy place in any home, and these sensors can easily go unnoticed. If a person or object bumps the sensor, it may fall out of alignment. If one sensor is no longer pointed toward the matching sensor, it may need to be realigned. If any wires are showing around the sensor, or if the sensor appears to be damaged, you will need to call a professional to service the broken sensor.

Service

Bailey Garage Doors is proud to be one of Montana’s best garage door companies because of our reputation for quality. Our knowledgeable staff can fix any garage door issue you may have and our large inventory of parts can ensure that we have the part that you need.

How to Choose a New Garage Door

April 3, 2015 / doorsmt / 1 Comment

Choosing a new garage door for your home is a big investment, and one that can affect everything from how safe your home is to its exterior aesthetics. Before you dive into a purchase, consider these tips for choosing a new garage door:

Choose Your Style and Material
There are a handful of different garage styles, and multiple different types of garage building materials. Why style is definitely your personal preference and should go along with the style of your home, consider the climate you live in and your budget when choosing material. Wood doors, for example, are stunning, but can be very expensive. If you live in a place where temperatures are known to change sporadically from hot to cold, then fiberglass doors might be the better option. Or, if you live in an area that’s prone to burglary or violent weather, then steel doors—which are incredibly strong—could offer you exactly what you’re looking for.

Consider Garage Door Safety
A garage door with added safety features can be key, especially if you have children at home who might be at risk of a garage door injury. The newest garage doors on the market are pinch-resistant, pushing fingers out of the way when closing; feature tamper-resistant brackets that reduce the risk of injury under tension; and come equipped with reversing features that will cause the garage door to open back up if something is in its way upon closing.

Don’t Forget About Insulation
You might assume that insulation in a garage door is a waste of money. But with the increasing focus on energy conservation and space maximization, choosing a garage door that provides adequate insulation may end up being important to you and your family—you could end up using your garage door as a place for social gathering or as a place for work., among other things When choosing insulation for your garage, look for the garage’s R-value. A higher R-value is indicative of more thermal insulation, i.e., a higher R-value is equal to less outside noise and increased warmth. Remember, just because a door looks thick does not mean that it has a high R-value.

Consult with a Professional to Learn More
If you still have questions about what kind of garage door is right for you, don’t hesitate to reach out to a garage door professional to learn more today.

Garage Door Tune Up Billings MT

March 15, 2015March 15, 2015 / doorsmt / Leave a comment

Your garage door is probably the single largest moving object in your home. An automatic garage door opener will literally do all the heavy lifting for you when it comes to your garage door, but like all mechanical devices it requires regular maintenance if it is going to keep working like it should. The average garage door will move up and down over a thousand times a year, and that kind of usage will put significant wear and tear on anything.

A garage door should receive a tune-up at least once a year, and although that seems like a difficult task it becomes easier as long as you follow these simple steps.

Look for Problem Spots
The first step in your garage door tune-up is to look for any obvious problem spots in your garage door system. Rollers should be in working order, the seal around the door should be pliable and the door itself should not be dented or warped. Any parts that are overly worn or damaged should be replaced.

It is also important to disconnect the power to the garage door opener before looking over your garage door system. The last thing you want is to have your garage door to open while you’re working.

Lubricate the Roller
If you have metal rollers, they can be easily lubricated with WD-40. If you have vinyl or rubber rollers, you will have to use another lubricant since WD-40 can damage non-metal components.

Re-Align Locking Bars
Misaligned locking bars are common and can prevent the garage door from sliding into the slots on the door track and locking into place. If the locking bars are misaligned, loosen the screws on the guide brackets that hold the locking bars in place and tap them gently into place with a hammer until they are aligned with the slots. Tighten the screws when you’re finished.

Inspect and Clean Moving Parts
Your garage door has several moving parts, which is why it is subject to so much wear and tear. Loose bolts and screws will all need to be tightened, and any gummy parts will need to be removed and soaked in mineral spirits. To make sure all parts that are removed are put back in the right place, try to only remove one part at a time.

Lubricate Chains and Springs
The chains of a garage door system can be lubricated with white lithium grease, while the springs will require a silicone-based spray. The springs are under a lot of tension and can pose a safety hazard, so don’t be afraid to contact a professional to inspect or replace them safely.

For more information on garage door repairs or any of your garage door repairs, please follow us on Facebook or Twitter or feel free to contact us!

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