In an earlier blog post, we wrote about how winter can affect the life of your garage door, but realistically, in southwest Texas, winter isn’t that big a concern. Our climate lends itself towards sun, and maybe that’s a bonus for most of us. But just like cold weather, hot weather can adversely affect garage doors as well.
The operating motor itself is highly sensitive — extreme heat is just as likely to damage the sensors and wiring. It’s important to keep your garage door either closed, or look for a possible way to ventilate it. Although it might seem like a waste of money, consider looking into expanding your home air conditioning to the garage for maximum protection. Extreme heat can also affect your garage door opener. Though it’s a good idea for security reasons not to leave your opener on the dashboard of your car, putting it in the glovebox also reduces your possibilities of heat damage. You really don’t want to have your car stuck outside because you can’t open your garage door, right?
In addition, there’s the garage door itself to address. Many garage doors are made of metal – and in the summer, metal heats dramatically. If you have small children or pets, it’s possible they could burn themselves on the door, even if they’re just playing around. A heated metal door likely means the rest of the garage is overly warm as well, so it’s not a good idea to store fragile material during the summer either. If you have a wooden door, it’s less likely to overheat, but the extreme sun can lead to some warping and fading, particularly so if you have it painted. While this is also a functionality problem, it just doesn’t look good.
It can seem like garage doors are just too sensitive, what with having to worry about the weather and the numerous other issues that may pop up, but think about it this way. You store your car and so many other things in there — that motor has to roll up and down a thick door maybe two or three times a day. A garage door is an important investment and needs to be taken care of. Garage Door Doctors can help with that.
