Dented Garage Doors in Jenkintown | Star Solutions Garage Door

How to Deal with a Dented Garage Door

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If you have a large dent in your garage door, you will most likely have to replace it. This can cost you around $75 for a basic repair, but it can cost you anywhere from $150 to $400 total if you have to replace a panel. Steel and aluminum don’t require much maintainance, but they do dent easily. It could suffer a dent for any number of reasons, such as a bike bumps the door, or you have a basketball that bounces off the dented garage door.

Fix a Small Dent

You don’t always have to hire a professional to fix a small dent. How do you begin? First, you will wash the area surrounding the dent with warm water and soap. You let it dry. This ensures that you eliminate the dirt and grime in the region, which can present a problem as you go to get the door undented with sanding and other steps in the process. Next, you will place a wooden block over the dent and tap it with a mallet. This evens out the dent in the dented garage door.

You will sand the area to even out the surface of the dent and make it less visible. After the putty dries, you will sand it down to give it an even appearance. Finally, you apply the primer and let it dry. Next, grab a paintbrush and add a fresh coat of paint.

When to Call in the Professionals

You have cases where you might dial the number of a professional garage door company because you have too big of a dent in the door. With a bigger dent, you might try to first eliminate it with your own methods, but if it doesn’t disappear, call Star Solutions Garage Door in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania. With most dents in a garage door, you can repair them. However, you may need a professional to get rid of it.

Why Fix the Dent in a Garage Door

Think of what presents itself front and center with a home. When you go to look at a home, one of the first things that you will see is the dented garage door. Dents in a garage door can have a dramatic impact on the value of the home. Garage door springs replacement ranks as one of the highest returns on investment, according to Remodeling Magazine. With some dents, you can take them out, but you have others that you can’t take out, and this can lower the curb appeal and value of the home.

Steel vs. Aluminum

In general, you can repair aluminum far easier than what you can repair steel. In fact, you might approach getting rid of a dent differently, depending on whether you have a steel garage door or an aluminum garage door. You would use the method mentioned above to handle a steel garage door. How do you handle a dent in aluminum?

In general, these dents will usually be easier to fix. You begin the process in the same way as with the steel garage door. You will first wash the area with soap and water. However, you will use a heat lamp, a lighter, tinfoil and a can of compressed air. First, you scrub the dented area to clean the dirt and grime. This makes the rest of the process easier. You will wait 30 minutes to an hour for the water to dry. You will hold the heat lamp and the lighter flame over the tinfoil for around one minute.

Dented Garage Door

This puts the heat over to the dented area. Next, you will remove the tin foil, and you will spray it with a can of condensed air evenly. Because of a sudden change of temperature, this causes the aluminum material to reverse the dent. Eventually, you will see it return to its original position to look like new.

Important to Note: Doing either methods to get rid of the dent in the dented garage door may not work if you have too large of a dent. In cases like that, you may have to call in a professional.

What Works

Whatever method you choose, you want it to eliminate the dent. This depends on the intensity of the dent, and in some cases, you may find it worth the cost to call in a professional because they can do this with ease. A professional can look over the garage door to determine if further repairs are needed. For example, you might call in a garage door professional to fix an annoying grinding noise and have the dent repaired at the same time. In some cases, you might have them assess the garage door to determine if any further action is required.

Here at Star Solutions Garage Door, we can repair the dent that you may have gotten from a rogue baseball or a child’s baseball bat that struck the right place in the door. You don’t want this to have a negative impact on your home value because a garage door can add anywhere from $8,000 to $14,000 on a home. The better your garage door looks, the higher the value of the home. When you have dents in the door, it can also impact who comes in to see the home for the sale.

Garage Door Drive Openers in Jenkintown | Star Solutions Garage Door

Garage Door Drive Openers: What You Need to Know

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No matter what type of garage door drive that you choose, it will perform the same actions, but you might be wondering which garage door drive opener to choose. Should you choose the belt drive, or should you choose the chain drive? Maybe the screw drive or the jackshaft drive? Some of the ways that the they will differ include how they get built, their strength and amount of noise emitted. If you’d like to learn more, please check us out at Star Solutions Garage Door in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania.

Building of the Door Drives

Whether you choose the belt drive or another choice, all choices use rollers and the chain pulley system. That means that when you tap the button for the garage door, it will either open or close. You might say that in all cases, the drive will act like the transmission in the car. In other words, it’s essential to the working of your garage door.

Garage Door Drive Openers

The attraction to the screw drive opener comes from its simplicity. It has the fewest moving parts, and you can maintain this one the easiest. The one thing to understand with these doors is that they tend to be more sensitive to temperature fluctuations. In those cases, they will require more-not less maintenance.

On the other hand, the jackshaft garage door drive differs in that it has been mounted on the wall, right next to the garage door. As the torsion bar turns, it will either open or close. It uses springs to raise and lower the garage door.

The Strength of the Garage Door Drives

You may find yourself wondering which of the garage door drives will have the highest strength. In general, chain drive openers will rarely if ever fail. They’re some of the best garage opener drives because of the strength behind them. Because of its design, you have metal to metal, however, and you will need to oil it to keep it in working condition and ensure that it stays aligned. For those who don’t take care of chain drive openers, they may start to feed on the chain, which is a big problem.

You might also have other materials that run through the rubber as a way to reinforce it. The belts have also come a long ways in that they tend to be much stronger than what we had previously had for belt drives openers. Still, this type of garage door drive openers  won’t lift a door made from heavy wood as easily as some of the other types.

Garage Door Openers

Many jackshaft garage door drive openers have become favorable because of the security. They’re strong in terms of security, and many times, after closing, it will automatically use a deadbolt for additional security. In addition, their computerization tends to be some of the most robust out of all the opener types. The one thing about jackshaft garage door drive openers, however, is that they tend to cost a lot more.

Screw drive openers are strong because they use fewer working parts. Especially when you use fewer moving parts, that will have the advantage in that it doesn’t break down as often. That is one of the things that homeowners have favored with this type of garage door opener is that it can last longer than many of the other choices. Still, you shouldn’t neglect lubrication for it because all doors require some level of maintenance if they will continue to work properly.

Heavier garage doors, however, can be a disadvantage when it comes to the screw drive because of how this can put too much strain on the screws and cause some problems. Screw drive openers have one noted advantage in that they can open the garage door faster than many of the other choices because of how you have fewer moving components to get from point A to point B.

Which Garage Door Opener Operates the Quietest?

If you had to say the quietest garage door openers, it would most likely be the belt drive openers. That one is often considered the standard choice, and it doesn’t generate as much noise when you open it. Especially if you have someone in the house who works late hours, you may not want them waking you up as they come in.

Meanwhile, the chain drive opener works fine as long as you maintain it well, and it can also depend on the brand. With any of the openers, you will find that they open and close more quietly when well maintained. Screw drive openers aren’t as quiet as belt drive openers, but they do a decent job of remaining silent.

Garage Door Springs

Continue with the garage door maintenance inspection by activating the garage door openers. The garage doors springs replacement should be stretched now. Approach them with caution. Verify if anything looks unusual, such as an imbalance between the sides. If you notice any issues with your residential springs, work with professionals on a solution. These springs are under constant pressure.

Local Garage Door Reapir

Now, on to the subject of the jackshaft openers. You have a top-notch choice here that ranks right up there with the belt opener, but you’d most likely still choose the belt opener over the jackshaft. With that said, the jackshaft still opens quietly enough if your garage door connects closely to another bedroom. You might still find this choice valuable.

Hopefully this highlights the type of garage door drive openers available to you as a customer. You should choose one based on the purpose and your requirements. Our staff at Star Solutions Garage Door can help you to identify a good choice through looking at your budget and requirements. Understanding these things can ensure that you get matched up with the right garage door that will fit your needs.