How Standard Garage Doors Operate

At Crawford Door Sales, we want all our clients to be both thrilled with their garage door materials and informed on how to properly use them. Garage door safety comes down in large part to understanding safe standard usage for various components, and all of our residential and commercial garage door products are simple and easy to operate.

In many cases, informing you on the basic parts and operations of a garage door begins with the simplest possible area: How a standard garage door works. It’s totally understandable that people who have never spent time dealing with them before might not fully understand what makes a garage door operate the way it does, but a basic working knowledge here will help you both stay safe and identify future potential issues if they crop up. Here are some simple facts on how garages perform their duties.

Springs

The primary component involved in the operation of the garage door – that is, the lifting and closing it performs – is the spring. Most garages today use a spring called a torsion spring, which we’ll use as our example moving forward in this blog, but some smaller or alternative options may use what are called extension springs instead.

A torsion spring is a tightly wound spring that’s designed to harness large amounts of energy when coiled up. When the garage is opened, either via the automatic remote or manual pulling, the spring quickly unwinds to counter the weight of the door. This is why, despite the door weighing several hundred pounds and being too heavy for you to lift on its own, you can easily open and close it with just a moderate push.

Sliding on Rollers

When the garage is opened or closed and the torsion spring winds or unwinds to balance the pressure, the garage door will slide back and forth to move. This is done on a trolley, set on rollers on a track you can see hanging above your garage door. When the door is activated, it moves via a chain, belt or screw that moves right along with the door.

Possible Issues

In most cases where the garage won’t open or close properly, the issue is broken or worn down springs. In other situations, the trolley may have jumped off its track and stopped the door from being able to roll up and down like normal. In still other cases, the problem could be the automatic opener losing power or a signal to the garage – this is easily tracked by turning off the automatic opener and trying to open the garage, and easily fixed by replacing batteries or the opener.

For more on how a standard garage door operates, or to learn about any of our garage door products or solutions, speak to the staff at Crawford Door Sales today.