You might have heard about balancing tires, but what about balancing garage doors? At a glance, your typical garage door looks like a relatively simple setup, but there's actually more going on than you think. Various components work together to make your garage door open and close seamlessly. And one aspect of garage doors that most homeowners (at least in Arvada) tend to overlook is that everything needs to be balanced and aligned. Rather like a misaligned foot can cause knee pain and problems, a garage door that is unbalanced can cause parts of the garage door to wear out prematurely, break or produce a lot of unwanted noise.

In this post, we're going to discuss a few of the ways in which you might be able to spot that your garage door is unbalanced and why you will want to call a garage door repair pro to get it balanced ASAP if you do see any of these things.

Signs that Your Garage Door is Unbalanced

You might see one of these things on its own or multiple at the same time. All of them are possible signs that your garage door may no longer be properly balanced.

Strange and/or Loud Noises

A garage door operating properly shouldn't produce a lot of noise. If you've recently started to hear strange or loud noises as your door moves up and down the tracks, this could mean the door is unbalanced. Something has moved out of position and is most likely causing one or more components to grind against each other, as opposed to moving freely.

Doesn’t Seem Level When Opening/Closing

This is a very quick visual test that you can do. As the door is lowered down into the closed position, and lifted up to fully open, the door should remain level throughout if all is well. Use the base of the door as a reference and contrast it against the floor when the door is in motion. It’ll usually be quite apparent if the door is lop-sided, and this is a very strong indicator that you need a garage door repair company to come and rebalance it.

It Takes Longer to Open and Close

It'd be handy if you knew how long the door used to take to open, but I doubt you'll have ever timed it. But you probably have a good idea of how long it used to roughly take. If you notice that it now takes significantly longer, it could be because it’s unbalanced. You see, when the door is unbalanced, the weight is distributed differently and the opener can have a harder time pulling the door up and lowering it down as a consequence.

Door Won’t Open At All

In extreme cases, when a garage door becomes severely unbalanced, your garage door opener might not be able to pull it open at all, as the majority of the weight is distributed onto one side. There are other reasons a door might not open, though. Switch it to manual and try lifting the door yourself. Do you feel the weight leaning to one side? Is it super hard to lift? Call a garage door repair pro to check it out!

Door Starts to Close After Opening Manually

This is obviously more noticeable if you don’t use a garage door opener. But even if you have an opener, you can switch it to manual mode and carry out this test. If you open the door fully and set it in its resting position at the top of its range of motion, do you notice that it starts to close again on its own? If it does, this is another sign that it’s unbalanced, as more weight is slanted to one side and that causes the door to lower.

Why Do Garage Doors Become Unbalanced?

When you had your garage door installation done, everything was perfectly balanced. So how come it’s unbalanced now? It has to do with the garage door springs. When a garage door is perfectly balanced the weight of the door is equally supported by both of the springs. When one of the springs provides too much or too little tension, it causes the door to become unbalanced and lopsided.

What Happens If You Don’t Repair an Unbalanced Garage Door?

Nothing good! That’s the short answer. There are two parts of your garage door that can be put under particular strain if the door is unbalanced.

• Garage Door Opener – As I've already mentioned, when severely unbalanced, your opener may not be able to budge your door at all. But even if the door is only slightly unbalanced, this will put a strain on the opener and key components, such as the drive gears, sprockets, and carriages, which may become stripped and cause the unit to cease functioning. And garage door openers are not cheap!
• Torsion/Extension Springs – When things are out of whack, more pressure is put on the spring taking the majority of the weight. This could ultimately result in it snapping. And you had better pray you’re not below it if that happens, as a garage door that suddenly falls can do some serious damage.

Call Our Garage Door Repair Pros If You Suspect Your Door is Unbalanced

Our garage door repair team has been serving Arvada home and business owners since 2002. Unbalanced garage doors are an issue that we deal with dozens of times every single year. If you see any of the signs listed above, call our team at (303) 422-0232 and we’ll do the rest.