How To Fix Uneven Garage Door
There’s nothing more dissatisfying to look at than an uneven garage door, is there? But although dealing with an unbalanced garage door is aesthetically annoying, as a homeowner, you should know that your uneven garage door is symptomatic of technical damage that shouldn’t be ignored. For this reason, repairing that garage door and fixing the imbalance should be a #1 priority. Being proactive in this way spares you the hassle of bigger, costlier problems with your garage door and reduces possibilities of injury.
But First, What Causes an Uneven Garage Door?
Well, before we get into unlevel garage doors, it’s fair that we discuss the mechanism that keeps garage doors balanced in the first place.
Opening and closing most types of garage doors rely on the torsion springs on either side of the door. In a balanced garage door, the weight of the door is evenly distributed to each side spring, making the tension in them easy for the springs to handle. This is basically how you can comfortably open and close your garage door.
In an unbalanced garage door, however, the weight of the door is supported by one torsion spring more than the other, making the tension in the springs on either side unequal. This, in turn, causes your garage door to be unlevel.
Since each spring has a maximum weight capacity it can support, leaving your uneven garage door like that for a long time will eventually cause it to stop opening and closing altogether! And this is a point you absolutely don’t want to reach! The damage might end up being so bad that the only solution, in that case, is to install a new garage door, which is obviously a much pricier endeavour.
So, how Can You Balance a Crooked Garage Door?
Before you get started, you need to have these three tools:
- Vice Grips
- A 7/16’’ Socket or Wrench
- A Winding Bar
DISCLAIMER: WE STRONGLY RECOMMEND YOU USE THE TOOLS ABOVE TO AVOID A SERIOUS INJURY.
A handy homeowner can follow the steps we’ve listed above to fix their uneven garage door. If you’re willing to DIY the job, we advise you to proceed with caution. However, we must stress that repairing your own garage door can be very dangerous, so if you’re unsure about repairing your unbalanced garage door, we highly recommend you contact a Garage Door Specialist.
