Serving your garage door needs – for over 35 years.
Whether you are in the market for a new garage door or opener installation, replacement or repair we’ve got it covered. We service and repair all brands of doors and openers. Give us a call and we will answer any questions you have right over the phone. We believe in informing our customers. If you don’t need to replace it we’ll gladly tell you. Our philosphy is simple: honesty, quality and fairness. That’s what the Hickory area’s oldest family-owned & operated door business has always lived by. Give us a call today!
We Love a Challenge
Every now and then we run into a job that others have said “it’ll never work right” and they’ve somewhat given up on. That’s when we like to jump in and prove we’re up to the challenge. We recently had such an opportunity. The homeowner needed an old door opener replaced and the existing door opening built down so that the door could be properly sealed with weatherseal. The existing door and opener were apparently installed by the previous homeowner. The basement of the home had steel beams in strange places which led the previous homeowner to install everything in an equally strange way – which is most likely why some said “it’ll never work right.” The manner in which the old opener was installed was definitely not “by the book” but there was really no reason why a new opener installed the same way wouldn’t work just as well as the previous one had for 20 years…it just required a little more work than usual. Likewise, the door he had installed needed ample adjustment but nothing that was beyond repair.
The end result:
1. – We were able to install a brand new opener in much the same way the old one was installed and it worked just fine.
2. – We made the needed adjustments to the existing door (including reinforcing the top section which had never been done) and had it working much better/smoother than before.
3. – We built the opening down and added wood on the sides of the opening to allow installation of weatherseal around the door. This door was mounted directly to a block wall instead of wood jambs so all wood for the seals to be attached to had to be installed. We made certain all anchors used to mount the wood to the block were placed in such a way that they were hidden underneath the weatherseals. A final trim board was used on the outside of the header to hide all seams and produce a nice finished look – complete with drilled cavity for existing cable tv line to pass through.
After a little paint and caulking you wouldn’t be able to tell that this little improvement wasn’t part of the original plans, and that strange opener install turned out working just fine!
Basic door care
We frequently have customers ask us, “what do I need to do to maintain my garage door?” Well, here’s the answer:
1) Keep it lubricated. Your garage door is basically a moving wall and it has a lot of moving parts. It is important to keep these parts properly lubricated and it’s simple to do. First, use only light-weight lubricants. Heavier lubricants (such as motor oil) will eventually catch enough debris to “gunk” up and prevent parts from moving properly and cause problems – not to mention they are a mess. Spray the lubricant on each hinge (part 1 in picture below), roller (part 2), pulley (part 3 – only on stretch spring doors), bearing plate (part 4 – only on torsion spring doors) and torson spring (part 5 – only on torsion spring doors). We recommend doing this at least once every three months. For help with locating any of these parts just give us a call.
2) Keep a check on how easily the door can be lifted by hand. Over time the springs on your door will lose some of their strength. When this happens the door will begin to be harder and harder to lift. If you have a garage door opener on the door it is a good idea to periodically disconnect the door from the opener to work the door manually. If the door ever becomes too heavy to comfortably lift by hand then the springs need adjustment and your opener shouldn’t be lifting the door. A heavy door will eventually damage your opener and lead to additional, and potentially very costly, repairs. We do not recommend adjusting spring tension on your own. Please contact us and allow us to do this for you as it can be very dangerous and potentially lead to injury without proper knowledge and tools.
Following these two simple steps will greatly increase the longevity of your door and your door opener. As always please give us a call with any questions or concerns you may have. Also, if your door hasn’t been serviced in a while, give us a call today and we will set up an appointment to make sure your door is in top working order.
My garage door opener just hums, what is going on?
Most of the time, especially if you have a Chamberlain or LiftMaster brand door opener, this means that the main drive gear inside of the opener is worn out and no longer making contact to turn the sprocket assembly.
This is another instance where we inform our customers and let them make their own decision because the exact lifespan of an opener is impossible to predict. The average lifespan of an opener is somewhere between 12 – 15 years depending upon the size of your door and how often the opener is used. If your opener is in this age range you may want to consider replacing the broken unit with a new one (new factory warranty, new ADAM Door warranty, etc.). Replacing the main drive assembly is somewhat of a gamble on older units. We have replaced the assemblies in some units and they have lasted for many more years while others may last only a matter of months. In either instance we will always check the spring balancing of your door as this can sometimes be the cause of a worn out drive gear – another good reason to have your door serviced each year.
We will gladly install a new gear assembly for you if you like, or if you’re a mechanical person and you’d rather install it yourself you can drop by and purchase one anytime.
