The number of defective garage door installations I see on brand new homes is shocking.  It’s a place for the builder to cut costs with an inexpensive door installed FAST by low paid, inexperienced laborers who don’t have to warranty their work for more than a year or two.

This leads to garage doors that are often unreliable and damaged after just a few years.  Walk around any subdivision and you will see lots of doors with a crack or wrinkle right in the middle of the top panel, a sure sign of stress beginning to take its toll. 

When caught early, most installation defects can be fixed before anything breaks.  But if you wait too long, it will end up being REALLY expensive.  New garage door panels, especially if there are windows, can cost over $1000 with installation.

My recommendation is that new garage doors get a Wellness Check after it has been opened about 2,000 times.  Assuming regular use (average of four lifts per day), this typically means about two years after the original installation.  By this point anything that wasn’t done correctly during the original installation will show itself.

The common problems we find include:

• Poorly “balanced” doors. This means that the springs were not tensioned properly, and the door is too heavy for the opener, leading to top panel damage and premature opener failure.
• Track that is too tight. If the door is binding, even slightly, reliability problems, worn rollers, and damage will happen eventually.
• Track that is too loose. This won’t usually hurt the door, but it will create a lousy seal around the perimeter, letting cold air, bugs, and rodents into your garage.
• Safety sensors installed in the wrong place, or in such a way that they will easily come out of alignment, stopping the door from closing.
• Doors that were never lubricated during the installation.
• Poor opener installation – Openers that are installed way too high above the door, and opener arms that are mounted in the wrong place or on the wrong angle.
• Lag bolts that are loose. Most of the time, the track and opener mounts are on top of drywall.  If short 1.5” lag bolts were used, they may barely be “biting” into the wooden structure behind the sheetrock.  You definitely don’t want the track to come off of the wall, or for the opener to fall out of the ceiling.
• Bad wiring splices – Most new homes come pre-wired for a garage door opener. This usually means that a splice has been performed to connect the safety sensors.  If the installer just twisted the wire together a couple times, it will go bad after a few years, resulting in a door that won’t close.

For homeowners looking to protect their investment and avoid frustrating problems, a Garage Door Wellness Check is a quick, inexpensive way to make sure you don’t end up sinking serious money into your garage door after just a few years.  We are happy to perform this service for anyone, but this is specifically intended for newer homes in the 1 – 5 year old range.