How to stop your garage door from squeaking

You would be surprised at how many homeowners, commercial and industrial businesses have garage doors that make that atrocious squeaking sound. Whether it’s being opened or closed, night or day, the sound penetrates and disturbs anyone within hearing distance. Considering that the speed of sound is 340m/second, a squeaky garage door can really be an environmental nuisance.

Should this be an issue that you experience, here are a few tips to help you get rid of the noise.

Don’t use oil.

It’s seems like the most obvious thing to do, but oil can actually cause more harm than good. Instead, use a grease to lubricate the moving parts on the garage door. You can either use a lithium or silicone based grease.

Lubricate all of the moving parts on the garage door.

The cause of the noise is from the moving parts on your garage door. Here are the steps that you should follow to properly lubricate the garage door and minimise the noise.

1. Make sure that the garage door is in the closed position.
2. Disconnect the garage door from the motor.
3. Spray the moving parts of the door as you manually move the door along the track.
4. Make sure all hinges and pivot points, stems and nubs and arm bars are lubricated with a lithium based grease.
5. Grease your rollers.
6. Check to see if your garage door uses a metal or plastic roller. Plastic rollers have no ball bearings. They are designed to last a few years and typically need replacing. Metal rollers that have ball bearings are usually exposed to environmental elements. It’s important that these are always greased.
7. Use the straw from the spray to properly grease the ball bearings
8. Make sure that you do this with the rollers on the door track.
9. If you have a seal bearing rollers, you won’t need to use any grease because the ball bearings aren’t exposed and thus won’t require any maintenance.
10. Check the pulleys. If the ball bearings are exposed, you will need to keep them well-greased on a regular basis. After you’ve greased the pulley, test it by putting it in motion.
11. If the pulley that you have is seal based, the bearings won’t be exposed and there won’t be any need to grease the actual pulley.
12. Beware of greasing up the chain. Garage door opener chains come out of the company with a protective coat, which should last for the life of the motor. If you feel like the chain may be giving you an issue, spray a cloth with WD40 on it and then wipe it down. This will help repel moisture.
13. Lubricate the top of the rail, which is where the trolley moves back and forth. This will help to minimise friction. Make sure you spray the top and not the bottom of the rail.
14. You don’t need to grease your track. If you do grease your track, it will only cause more problems by collecting more dirt and debris into the track. Eventually it will harden and cause more problems. Instead, make sure that the tracks are kept cleaned.
15. Grease the bearing plates

The garage door is probably the largest moving object on your property. It’s important to ensure that it is operating properly so that it won’t make any noise that will affect you or the people in your surrounding environment.