Rollers
Garage Door Roller Service By TopChoice Garage Door Repair Conroe TX
The Purpose of Garage Door Rollers
Your garage door is made up of an interconnected network of different parts that allow it to function properly. Each individual part has a particular purpose within its own portion of the mechanism. If you were to remove one of these parts, your garage door would cease to function as intended and might even stop functioning at all. One of these important parts would be the garage door rollers. Although they do not often get any attention since you do not really see them unless you intentionally look for them, they perform the important function of keeping your garage door on a track. This assumes you are using an overhead sectional garage door, as there are types of garage doors without rollers. A typical garage door would have between 8 to 12 rollers, varying with the size of the door. Obviously, if your garage door is for a commercial establishment that houses a truck, then it would have more. Each roller is made up of a metal stem with a wheel on one end, which can be covered in plastic, steel, or nylon. Some of these have ball bearings while other do not. The stems are attached to the skeleton of the garage door, while the wheels are attached to the track, making sure that the panels of the door fold neatly when they open and close. Without the rollers, your garage door would simply be a mess.
Selecting Rollers
Most of the time, when you buy a garage door, whether it is an overhead garage door or a roller garage door, all the parts are already included. This obviously includes the rollers. However, the rollers that come with a new garage door have wheels that are covered in plastic, as these are the cheapest. However, you may want to consider buying better rollers as rollers with plastic wheels have the shortest lifespan. Sometimes, you can add a little extra on top of the price of your new garage door to opt for better rollers, but if not, it might still be worth it to buy additional rollers that are better for your garage door. If you have some wiggle room in your construction budget, you should consider opting for steel or nylon covered rollers, as these better protect the wheels, resulting in a longer lifespan. Aside from the covering of the wheels, you should also try to get rollers with ball bearings. Some rollers do not have ball bearings, which make them easier to maintain, but it also means that they do not last as long. The lifespan of a garage door is measured in cycles, with each cycle being an instance of the door opening and closing, and rollers that have ball bearings end up lasting several thousand cycles longer than those without. Just like the wheels covered in steel or nylon, the rollers with ball bearings are often more expensive, but they end up more economical in the long run because they end up lasting longer, which means you will not have to replace it as soon.
Maintenance and Replacement
In order to get as long a lifespan out of your rollers as possible, you need to make sure you maintain them properly. Just like the rest of your garage door, you should personally inspect your rollers at least once a month. It is also advisable to have a professional, like those we have at Garage Door Repair Conroe TX, to inspect your garage door once or twice a year. Of course, the best habit you can form to get more years out of your garage door would be to limit its cycles, as not opening and closing it too frequently can really go a long way. However, opening and closing your garage door is inevitable, so you need to find other ways to maintain it. For your garage door rollers with ball bearings, you have to lubricate them once a year in order to ensure they do not prematurely break down. You should also keep an eye out for signs of wear and tear on your rollers, as this is a sign that you have to replace the rollers. If you are certain that it is time to replace your rollers, you should do it as soon as possible to avoid unnecessary stress on the rest of the mechanism. To replace your rollers, you will have to bend the metal track in order to create a slot for the rollers to slip out. Then, you will have to manually move the garage door along its track to replace each roller. For the top-most roller, you will have to bend the track itself as the rollers will not reach the slot. Remember to bend everything back.
Garage Door Roller Professional Help
If all that seems a little too daunting, there is no need to feel ashamed. It is always safer to err on the side of caution, rather than force yourself to replace your rollers without actually knowing what you are doing. A good idea would be to hire a professional the first time you work with your rollers and then simply observe them so that you can do it yourself the next time. If that is what you are looking for, then you want to make sure that the professional you hire does it perfectly the first time around. It takes years of experience and know-how, which is why we only hire the best at TopChoice Garage Door Repair. As long as you are in Conroe, TX, we can help you with all your garage door concerns, even if you are working with a roller garage door. If you need help replacing your rollers, or even buying them in the first place, then simply give us a call and we will lend a helping hand. We are open 24/7, so you can have us come over at whatever time is most convenient for you. The experience of our experts are at your disposal, so you have nothing to worry about. Just pick up that phone, and forget all your garage door worries.