UPS AND DOWNS OF GARAGE DOORS
Feature Story
For many people a garage door is simply a necessity, almost an afterthought.
But its importance is frequently overlooked, according to local garage door company owners.
Not only does it present a buffer to the outside, it is also a security device.
Even beyond these fairly obvious benefits, a beautiful garage door can do wonders to enliven a home’s curb appeal.
“It takes up so much of your home,” said Andy Pomroy, owner of Windsor Door Sales Inc. “It can be as much as 40-percent of your façade.”
That’s a lot of space that can really become a black hole in terms of how your home looks from the street, he said.
“Some of the easier things we can do are where we have a lot of new products,” Pomroy said. “We have a faux wood-type product that is really nice. It has some two tones to it so it looks really, really rich with a variety colors, but you don’t have to worry about maintenance. Wood is so beautiful but our weather conditions are so harsh.”
The wood grain has added a new element and style to garage doors, said Diane Garcia, owner of Garage Doors by Nestor.
“The carriage style, the wood grain carriage style is the newest trend in garage doors,” she said. “Everybody wants to look at the new-style carriage doors. They have the hinges like metal doors, but they look like barn-type doors, with the hinges and handles, but they work just like a regular door does. The front of the doors looks like a carriage style door, but it bends as it goes up. It’s just the outside that looks different.”
And like the rest of our world, technology has now invaded our garage space, connecting the doors to smart systems.
“The new garage door openers are now Wifi ready,” Garcia said. “You actually put an app on your computer or your phone. The app
will tell you whether your door opened. It will alert you to let you know your garage door is open. You can open your garage door from where you’re at, which is a pretty neat feature if somebody needs to get in the house and you’re not there, you can always open your garage door from wherever you’re at and then close it again. And one of the best features is it will alert you if it goes up at some point during the day if you’re not home.”
All of the garage doors that Windsor installs now automatically come with the internet technology, Pomroy said, and the accompanying apps are free to download and use.
“One thing that’s really neat is that they’re coming up with new machines, new technology for security purposes with your phone,” he said. “It comes standard and the app is free with no annual charge. It will send you a push notification, to alert you if it’s being opened. They can also hook it up so that, for instance, you can hook it up to your mother-in-law’s house to make sure they’re okay.”
And for those with older doors, Pomroy said he offers an easy-to-install device for $130 that can update virtually any garage door to be Wifi compatible.
The systems are being integrated into overall home security systems now as well he said, even with remote cameras that provide a view of the area. This integrates with an Amazon app, allowing deliveries to be placed in a garage that is opened and closed remotely, to prevent theft and other misfortunes.
Like any kind of machine, however, garage doors and their activating gadgetry much be periodically checked and maintained for greater efficiency and wear.
“What we tell every customer is this is like your car, you need to maintain it,” Garcia said. “We recommend that you service your door at least once a year. We go out and lubricate all the moving parts on the door, check your spring, rollers, and hinges, everything that’s a part for the door. We check the settings to make sure everything is still correct and we make sure the door is balanced. If you do that on a yearly basis, the door will actually last a lot longer.”
If the door is not used all that often, you can get away with a check every other year, Pomroy said, but certainly no less
“The wood grain carriage style is the newest trend in garage doors. They have hinges like metal doors.The front looks like a carriage style door, but it bends as it goes up. It’s just the outside that looks different.” diane garcia garage doors by nestor
frequently than that.
“I don’t use my front door very much because I go in and out through the garage,” he said. “It will give you a longer lifetime, but one of the things people don’t think about is servicing a garage door until it breaks. Then they call.” Another factor is the weight of the door. “Because garage doors require springs – they’re the gas tank, the form of energy that makes the door go up and down – they need to be kept in mind.,” Pomroy said. “Service it. Tune it up. It should also be checked on a standard basis. How often, depends on how much you use it, or if it’s very heavy. If it’s not something that’s huge or extremely heavy, you have more time. However, you don’t want to wait until it’s making a noise or not doing something to think maintenance.”
Another issue that is frequently overlooked is the photo sensors that prevent the door from closing when blocked.
“Every single garage door opener should have photo sensors down at the bottom of the garage doors, one at each side,” Garcia said. “If they are blocked, that door is not going to come down. It’s a safety feature from the garage door opener so you don’t get anything caught under that door. The issue that a lot of customers have is they don’t know how to align the sensors or they get kicked around or a trash bag gets put in front of them. You want to point them toward each other and each has a light. If the light is blinking, that means it’s out of alignment. If you get a steady light that means there’s alignment.”
To make sure these other issues are understood, Garcia said homeowners are given basic instructions.
“Every time we install a garage door opener, we go over all the safety features,” she said. “We make sure the homeowner knows how to align those photo sensors.
It can be a real issue. A lot of times, we’ll walk them through it on the phone, if they call us. We can easily walk a customer through it. And you should never replace your own torsion spring. If the door doesn’t want to go up, it’s a sign you have a broken spring.”