The fact is, most homeowners forget all about the garage door once it is in place, but a lot could go wrong over the years. The door starts making a lot of noise, gets very hard to open or close, or can even cease to function eventually.
So, here’s the question – how long can you expect a garage door to last after the installation?
Well, that depends on a number of factors. Most important – how long has it been since you last had the garage door serviced by a professional?
You should hire a garage door professional to have a look at the door and have it serviced at least once every 6 months. Regular maintenance can help increase the life span of the door.
Fact is age catches up with most garage doors. An average garage door should last for 20 years. It can get affected by rust, which makes movement difficult. You might need to replace several hardware components over the years to keep it running smoothly.
Let’s begin with the torsion springs. The torsion springs provide the door with 90 percent of the lift needed to raise it. So you can well imagine how important they are to its operation. Torsion springs deteriorate and wear out over time and need to be replaced.
The lifespan of the garage door spring will depend on how often you use the door and its cycle rating. What’s a cycle rating? Every time the garage door is opened or closed, that’s a cycle. Most torsion springs have a cycle rating of 10,000.
That means, the average torsion spring used in a garage door should last for 6 to 10 years, depending on how often you open and close the garage door during the day. Most people open and close the garage door about 3 to 5 times a day.
If you want the torsion springs to last longer, try to reduce the number of cycles per day, or the number of times you open or close the garage door. The more time you take to burn through the 10,000 cycles, the longer the springs would last. Of course, that’s hard for most families with children who need to be driven to school or to soccer practice.
Rusting is the most common reason for garage doors to fail, especially in regions that get a plenty of rainfall. The build up of the rust leads to an increase in the coil friction on the torsion spring. This can cause a corrosive damage over time, because of which the springs will need to be replaced.
You can certainly do your bit to prevent or at least to delay the damage and to prevent the rust from spreading. Apply light silicone spray to the spring coil every 3 months or so. This ensures that the spring is well lubricated and prevents the rust from building up too fast.
We have talked about garage door springs, but generally, most of the hardware parts used in the garage door opener are designed to last for 5 to 7 years, not more than that. This includes the cables, bearings, drums, rollers, brackets and hinges.
The best way to make sure that they last long is to hire a garage door professional to conduct maintenance every 6 months, during which they would check the door’s balance, lubricate its hinges, inspect the cables, check the springs and make sure that the door is running smoothly.
