A garage for your cars is a modern day luxury. It’s so nice to be able to walk directly to your car and get in without ever seeing the outside. All good things come with compromise though, and one of the things that can be a bit of an annoyance with a garage is how loud the garage door opener is when it’s operating. This can be a particular problem if one member of your household is leaving while the rest of the family is trying to sleep.
Luckily, there are a number of things you can do to quiet down a noisy garage door. Let’s dig into some of the easier ways you can relieve your household from this minor but persistent nuisance.
Get It Right From The Start
The absolute easiest way to get started on your journey towards a quieter opening garage door is to start with using a garage door opener that is renowned for quiet operation. Try to find the quietest garage door opener available within your budget, and you’ll have started off on the right foot. As they say in the entertainment industry, you can’t polish a turd. To translate this comedic jargon to something we can all understand a little more effortlessly, basically it means there is only so much you can do with poor raw materials. You can make all the tweaks we’ll discuss in a minute, but if your garage door opener is just a loud model to begin with you’re not really going to see that much of a benefit.
Smooth Sailing
If you’re already using a high quality and quiet garage door opener and you’re still experiencing issues, this is the next place to address. Your garage door opener’s operating mechanisms should be properly cleaned and lubricated. Usually you’ll want to use a light and low-viscosity grease. White lithium grease is often the lubricant of choice. This will keep the chain and gears from squeaking and squealing. Don’t just spray some WD40 on there, that is more likely to cause problems in the long run than it is to help. If all else fails, just take a look in the owner’s manual and see what is recommended for your opener. While you’re at it, take a look at the rollers on the garage door itself. If they could use some help, you can use some lubrication on them as well.
Secure the Rails
The next thing to do is to make sure that the travel rails for the garage door are properly aligned and that they are in good condition. If there is a jog in the rails then every single time the garage door’s wheels travel past it there’s going to be a bit of a jolt. There’s a lot of momentum behind a moving garage door, which will transfer to a whole lot of sound if the wheels hit something out of the ordinary in the rails. Usually this can be fixed if needed by adjusting the mounting screws so that the rails provide a continuous, uninterrupted track for the garage door to open through.
Are you having issues with your garage door that weren’t addressed here? Please let us know and we’ll update the article to address them (that is, if we do in fact know how to fix them!). If you found this article helpful please don’t forget to share it with your friends!
Pat Givens is a business owner and a homebody. She is a mom of two and is happily married to Mark.