My anality and the garage door
 

I know, sometimes little things get to me and I love a challenge. Been in the house for 16 mos now. When spankin'new the garage door was oh-so quiet when open/close. Over the months it's gotten a bit noisier. I did the usual door spray on hinges and moving parts. The opener - hi-end Genie is perfect (screw drive).

The irritating CREAKY noise when open/close has steadily gotten much worse over the months. Door faces east so gets the morning sun too. Could not determine exactly which panels or joints were the cause of the creaks - I do notice other neighbors doors do the same...loud. I'm not the type to call a garage door co and pay for them to diagnose and try to fix.

So...after looking and listening closely, determined I need to isolate much of the hinge plates and cross support rail hardware from the door and rails. Hmm,best might be rubber washers between key hardware and door. LOTS of washers. Thought of those hose rubber washers on a sheet, avail at hardware or Lowes/HD. Bought 2 sheets of 12 - loosened some hinge areas and cross rails, put washers between them and the door and retightened. Needed to buy more washers and did, 3 more sheets of 12 ea. In order to isolate ALL areas, I now need 2 sheets more.

But - bottom line, the door is almost SILENT now; basically just hear the rollers rolling and the opener whirring. The isolation of those parts seems to do the trick just fine. LOTS of work and great to have a nice Milwaukee power drill/driver. Will finish all the joints when get more washers, and will see how long it all lasts....

Atta Boy Dean!

I want to hear my garage door opening.

So do I. Early warning.

hmmm, darn. Didn't think of that. Perhaps, like hybrids and elec cars - I'll need to add some artificial noise. always sumthin'. thanks a lot guys... :cus:

There is a lot to be said for someone wanting to do things themselves. I like to do that myself, sometimes. We had a problem with one of ours and I finally called RoMac and had the technician come and adjust our doors. As it turned out, the doors were installed with the top panel too close to the second panel. If you look at the track, there is a little bump in it just after the curve at the top of the front part. The top panel is supposed to be about 1/8 to 1/4 inch above the second panel. This keeps them from binding when the upper panel goes over that bump. The technician told me that the majority of the doors that he sees are installed imporperly. I think our money was well spent.

I haven't looked at our garage door in the villages, but the one's in our other home have a spring-loaded mechanism on the lowest roller with RED screws warning not to remove them. So be careful and take a look at how the counter-balancing springs (if any) work.

This is a most excellent post! Many thanks for sharing and caring.
It goes right to my heart! Utterly simple and satisfying.