Spring Cleaning and The Garage Door

Home improvement is a never ending cycle of cleaning, fixing, examining and wondering. I have come to believe that the most important facet in all of this is cleaning. Although, I have spoken about getting rid of spider sacks and webs and generally stepping up my cleaning game for the outside of the house, not enough can be said about the fact that cleaning improves everything. When I commuted Monday through Friday, cleaning of the exterior and interior of the house suffered. By Thursday, it looked as if a wind storm had swept throught the inside of the house as I busily made a list of things to do on the outside of the house for the weekend. Basically, finding time to keep things spic and span is difficult, if not impossible if you work a 9 to 5 job and have a significant commute. Now, since I am not commuting, I have had the opportunity to keep the home clean inside and tackle chores outside during the week. I am saying this for all the people who wonder why they can't get every chore that needs to get done during the week. Unless you have help; someone to clean the inside, trim the outside and make sure that everything that can go wrong in a home is immediately fixed, then cut yourself a break.

Being at home, I have learned a few things and made a couple of observations. Everything benefits from some cleaning. Even if it breaks while you are cleaning it, it was probably going to break anyway and probably at an inopportune moment.

I have an electric garage door opener with a torsion spring. The motor is mounted on the wall instead of the ceiling. Like many electric openers, it also has safety sensors located inside the garage, a couple of inches from the ground on each side of the door. The sensors have a beam that will either stop or reverse the direction of the door if it is broken. Unfortunately, the door would not always open fully when the opener was pushed, or the door would open very, very slowly. Sometimes, the garage door would only open about six inches and I would wind up pressing the opener until the door was at its highest level. I tried to trouble shoot the problem on my own, had other people look at it and finally paid someone to fix the problem. He told me I needed a new door and a new opener. It was very frustrating, eventhough I thought I was doing all of the required maintenance for the door.

One day, as I did my quarterly lubricating of garage door parts, I noticed that one of the rollers had come off of the track. I called my neighbor for help and as I waited for him to come over, I noticed a lot of dirt and cobwebs on and around the safety sensors. So, I grabbed my broom and began cleaning around the sensors.  My neighbor spectacularly put the wheel on track and then we tried the door. It opened and closed with ease. Later, when I used the door, it again  opened and closed with ease. A week passed and still no problem with the door. The light bulb went on for me. It just needed a good cleaning. The way the wind comes in, the door becomes a natural barrier, but all of the dirt and leaves, become lodged on either side of the door (where the sensors are). About a month passed and the door began slowing again. Then one day it stopped going up about half way. Again, I pressed the garage door opener and it went up all the way. Then I took time to clean around the sensors. Dust, dirt, and webs around the beams, seems to impair the function of the door. The manufacturer also stated that sunlight can affect the safety sensors. But I have not found sunlight to be the cause of my door not functioning properly. It's just dirt.

Although this means that there is one more thing to put on the "clean once a month list", it is certainly better than buying a new door and opener.