Over time garage doors and their components go through wear and tear. Particularly if the garage door is opened and closed frequently. If you leave your home every day, and you park in your garage, your door will be opened and closed at least twice a day, if not more often! Because of this near constant use, parts of your garage door get worn out. A pretty common thing that happens is for the track to get bent. But the dilemma is how do you tell if your track is bent? And if it is how do you determine exactly how it got bent and what do you do about it?
Hopefully you’ll find out that your tracks are bent before it leads to more damage to your door system. If you notice that the door is shaky, or seems to have more difficulty closing, or closes unevenly, it’s likely that your tracks are bent. Take a close look along your whole track, you can even feel the track with your hands to see if any part of the track seems to be bent.
There are a few reasons your track can become bent. The biggest reason is if they are hit. Occasionally if we hit the track with a vehicle, the collision will be too much for the track system and bend it. Even if you maybe thought it was okay for a bit, the track may have become bent without you knowing it.
Regular wear and tear could be a reason for the track system becoming bent as well. If your track gets rusty, it can degrade the condition of the steel and the track can bend with very little force.
A final reason your track can bend is if a cable or drum breaks. If the cables on both sides of the door are not pulling evenly, it can cause the rollers to travel the track unevenly as well. This can cause a jumped roller which can lead to bending in the track system!
If you find that you do indeed have a garage door bent track system, call Hung Right Doors RIGHT AWAY. It is absolutely not safe to use a garage door that has a bent track.
Bent tracks can lead to a host of other issues with your doors. It may sound like a minor issue, but it can be a huge problem. Bent tracks makes if so that your door doesn’t travel smoothly. It can damage the cables, twisting them, or causing them to travel unevenly on the drum. IF the cable travels unevenly on the drum then the cable could jump the drum. Which would then cause the track to become even MORE bent. See? It’s a viscous cycle.
Running your door with bent track could be more dangerous too. If a few rollers jump the track it can cause part of your door to fall off the track, this could hurt someone if they were near the door, or damage your vehicle.
If you find that you have a bent garage door track make sure that you call Hung Right Doors Right away to schedule a service call. We can possibly hammer the track back into shape, or replace the portion that is damaged.
We offer a full line of clopay garage doors