Get Your Garage Door Ready for a Calgary Winter

Almost every emergency call we take in January was avoidable in October. Cold doesn’t create new problems so much as it finishes off the ones already there: grease stiffens, steel contracts, rubber goes hard, and a spring that was marginal in the fall gives up on the first properly cold morning.

Here’s what’s worth twenty minutes before the snow arrives.

Swap the grease, don’t just add more

Old lithium grease turns to paste below about -15°C, and a door fighting its own lubricant puts every bit of that extra load through the opener. Wipe the old grease off the rollers, hinges and bearings, then apply a thin coat of a garage door lubricant rated for cold — not WD-40, which is a solvent and will strip what little protection is left.

Skip the tracks entirely. Tracks are meant to be dry; grease in a track just collects grit and grinds the rollers.

Check the bottom seal against daylight

Close the door and look along the bottom from inside with the lights off. Any daylight is a gap, and a gap is where the snow blows in and freezes the door to the slab. Rubber that’s gone stiff or cracked won’t seal no matter how well the door is adjusted — the seal is a cheap part and a five-minute job.

While you’re there, check the seals down the sides. On an attached garage those gaps are also where your furnace heat leaves.

Test the balance

Pull the release cord with the door down, then lift the door by hand to about waist height and let go. A balanced door stays put. If it drops or shoots up, the springs are out of tune — and an unbalanced door in the cold is exactly what strips an opener gear.

Re-latch the opener when you’re done, and don’t try to adjust the springs yourself: that’s the one part of the door under enough tension to injure you.

Clear the slab before it freezes

Ice under the door edge is what tears seals off, and a frozen door that the opener keeps trying to lift is what bends the top section. Keep the strip in front of the door shovelled and salt-free — salt shortens the life of the bottom panel and the track hardware.

Listen once, in the quiet

Run the door up and down once with nothing else going on and just listen. A new grinding, popping or scraping noise is worth a call now, at a time of your choosing, rather than in a snowstorm when the car needs to come out.