How to Lubricate a Garage Door to Reduce Noise
Is your garage door making a lot of noise when you open it? Or is it opening slower than it’s supposed to? It looks and sounds like your garage door needs lubrication. Like any mechanical equipment, making sure your garage door is greased ensures all the moving parts stay moving. Plus, it prevents wear and tear, makes it run smoother, and lessens the probability of an accident. Let’s take a look.
What Type of Garage Door Lubricants Should You Use?
First, you need to choose which garage door lubricant you want to use to grease your garage door. People often think of regular WD-40, but it’s not a lubricating solution. It’s intended to degrease and remove rust. While it may offer some benefits for a while, it can worsen your garage door.
If you Google “what lubricant for my garage door rollers,” you’ll find the best types to use are silicone-based and lithium-based lubricants. We also wrote an article detailing the best garage door lubricants.
Silicone-Based Lubricant
If your garage door creaks during cold weather, a silicone-based garage door lubricant may be a good choice. These lubricants are long-lasting, moisture resistant, and weather resistant. They work their way into your garage door’s coiled springs, tight hinges, and other hard-to-penetrate areas. Some name brands you can try are Blaster Chemical Company Premium Silicone Garage Door Lubricant and WD-40 Specialist Water-Resistant Silicone Lubricant.
Lithium-Based Lubricants
If your most significant problem with your garage is noise, you’ll want to go with a lithium-based garage door lubricant. These lubricants reduce friction between metal parts and stay longer on the surface rather than going in the parts. This property makes this kind of lubricant great for greasing rails, rollers, and other friction-prone parts of your garage door. A good name brand to try is the WD-40 White Lithium Grease Spray.
How to Use Garage Door Lubricant
The most popular garage door lubricants are grease and spray.
Grease usually comes in cans and can be messy, but it can be effective and long-lasting.
Spray cans are easier to use and can penetrate hard-to-reach areas for better greasing. Choose a popular lubricating spray if this is your first time greasing your garage door by yourself.
How To Lubricate Your Garage Door: Step by Step Instructions
If you’d prefer to watch how, we have a YouTube video for that.
Before we go to the step-by-step instructions, it would be helpful if you prepared the following things in advance.
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Garage door lubricant (lithium or silicon-based)
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Cleaning supplies
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Safety equipment
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Rags
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Gloves
Note: If you’re unsure of the select garage door parts we recommend this article to identify the parts of a garage door.
- Close your garage door, and cut the power to it. Turning the power off is standard procedure whenever you want to work on your garage door.
- Clean the tracks first. The tracks are what your garage door travels when you open and close. These tracks DON’T need to be greased, but they must be clean and free of dirt and debris. Please make sure the tracks are dry when you finish cleaning them.
- Take your garage door lubricant and grease the components starting from the top. Lubricate the hinges, making sure to grease the interior and exterior of each hinge thoroughly. Spray the garage door lubricant where the track meets the hinges because this connection point is used often.
- Lubricate the rollers next. These contain ball bearings that help your garage door roll-up. Check your lubricant, use the thin hose attachment, and spray inside the rollers where the ball bearings are coated. Wipe any excess grease.
- You’ll lubricate the torsion springs next. These are the springs that lift the door up. Make sure your garage door is in a position that exposes these springs. Spray enough lubricant to cover the entire spring. Note: torsion springs can cause severe injury or even death if tampered with.
- Lubricate the lock of your garage door next. If you grease it, it makes it easy to lock and unlock and prevents rust in the long run.
- Finally, you need to lubricate the top of the rail where the chain travels to open the garage door. The chain comes with a natural protective coating, so you usually don’t need to grease it. Spray on the top of the rail, and use a rag to spread the grease.
- Double-check that you greased everything. Remove any excess lubricant and wipe everything down, clean and free of debris.
- Turn on your garage door power and operate it to make sure everything works properly. Once lubricated, your garage door should open and close more quietly.
Ideally, it would be best to lubricate your garage door’s springs hinges every three months. You don’t need to grease the tracks, but make sure to clean it to ensure it’s free of debris once every six months.
Do you need Help With Lubricating Your Garage Door to Reduce Noise?
Lubricating a garage door can be difficult, especially if you need to climb up a ladder to get to its nooks and crannies. Our team at Heritage Garage door is here for you anytime. Let us know if we can help.
