Spring is the right time to give your garage the attention it does not get the rest of the year. After months of winter – road salt tracked in, moisture, temperature swings, and a door that opened and closed through ice storms and cold snaps – a few hours of focused work in March or April gets everything back in order before summer. Here are nine things worth doing while you are out there.
1. Wash the Door Inside and Out
Your garage door accumulates road grime, pollen, insect residue, and oxidation over the course of a year – and in Oklahoma, that includes a full winter’s worth of weather. Wash both sides with warm water and a mild detergent. A soft brush or sponge works for most finishes; avoid abrasive pads on painted steel or wood. Rinse completely and let it dry. Beyond the appearance improvement, washing removes surface contaminants that break down paint and finish over time. The recommendation from most manufacturers is to wash the door twice a year – spring and fall.
2. Check and Replace the Weatherstripping
The rubber seal along the bottom of the door and the strips along the sides take a beating through winter. Check the bottom seal for cracking, hardening, or sections that have torn away from the retainer. Close the door and look for visible daylight at the edges – that gap means weather, insects, and dust are getting in. Weatherstripping is inexpensive and available at any hardware store, and replacing a worn seal takes under an hour. It is one of the highest-impact small maintenance tasks on the door.
3. Lubricate the Moving Parts
Lubricate the torsion spring coils, roller stems, hinge pins, and opener chain or belt with a silicone or lithium-based garage door lubricant. Do not use WD-40 – it evaporates and leaves components dry. Cold weather depletes whatever lubrication was in place last fall, and spring is when you will notice the squeak and stiffness that crept in over winter. Run the door a few cycles after lubricating to distribute the product. This single step prevents most of the noise and wear issues that develop through the year.
4. Tighten All the Hardware
Thousands of open-close cycles slowly work bolts and nuts loose over time. Go through the door with a socket wrench and tighten every piece of hardware you can reach – track mounting bolts, hinge screws, roller brackets, and the lag bolts that mount the opener to the ceiling. Check for any hinges that are visibly worn or cracked and replace them. This takes 15-20 minutes and catches the source of many rattles and squeaks before they become bigger issues.
5. Clean the Tracks
Garage door tracks accumulate grime, old lubricant, and debris that builds up into a coating that causes rollers to drag. Wipe the inside of the tracks with a damp cloth – especially in the curved sections where the door transitions from vertical to horizontal travel. Do not over-lubricate the tracks afterward; clean and smooth is the goal, not slick. If you see visible bends or dents in the track, that is a professional repair – bent tracks cause misalignment that gets worse over time.
6. Add Ceiling or Wall Storage
If your garage floor is crowded with gear you used once last summer and have not touched since, spring is the time to fix that. Move anything you will not use for months – holiday decorations, beach gear, off-season sports equipment – to wall-mounted shelves or overhead ceiling storage racks. Getting things off the floor makes the garage more functional, creates space for projects, and keeps hazardous items like chemicals and tools out of reach of kids and pets. Basic wall shelving and ceiling storage kits are DIY-friendly projects that pay off immediately in usable space.
7. Inspect the Springs and Cables Visually
You do not need to touch anything – just look. On a torsion spring system, check the coil above the door for any visible gap, which indicates a broken spring. Check the cables running along each side of the door for fraying, kinking, or slack. If you see anything that looks off, do not continue operating the door and call for service. A worn cable or broken spring is a repair job for a professional, not a homeowner – but catching it during a visual check is far better than discovering it when the door fails to open.
8. Test the Auto-Reverse Safety Feature
Place a 2×4 flat on the floor in the door’s path and close it. When the door contacts the board, it should immediately reverse. If it does not reverse, or reverses only after pressing down hard, the force sensitivity needs adjustment – consult your opener manual. Also wave your hand through the photo-eye beam path near the floor while the door is closing; it should reverse immediately. Both sensors should show solid indicator lights when the door is closed. If anything fails these tests, have the system serviced before continuing normal use.
9. Paint and Touch Up
Spring is the ideal time to paint – temperatures between 50 and 80 degrees and lower humidity than summer. Walk the door and look for chipped areas, rust spots on steel, or sections where paint has chalked or peeled. Touch up small areas with matching exterior paint and a brush. For steel doors with any bare metal showing, apply a rust-inhibiting primer before the topcoat. Catching these spots in spring prevents them from developing into larger rust or deterioration issues through summer heat and humidity.
Questions About Your Garage Door?
Discount Garage Door handles tune-ups, weatherstripping, spring replacement, and full inspections throughout the Tulsa and Oklahoma City area. If your spring walkthrough turns up something that needs a professional, give us a call or get a free quote online.
Get a free quote online or call your nearest location:
- Tulsa: 918-234-3667
- Oklahoma City: 405-525-3667
- Edmond: 405-348-2000
- South OKC: 405-848-6700
Related: Garage Door Repair in Tulsa and OKC | How to Fix a Noisy Garage Door | Testing Your Garage Door’s Auto-Reverse
