Garage door questions, answered for Colony Park

Local weather drives most of the repairs we run in Colony Park: with four distinct seasons of muggy summers and freezing and humid summers that seize hinges and rollers, cold-thickened opener grease that strains the motor, and freeze-thaw cycles that crack seals and loosen hardware, the common failure modes are humidity-swollen wood doors in summer, doors frozen to the slab on cold mornings, freeze-thaw-cracked bottom seals, and openers straining against cold-thickened grease. Our Colony Park trucks stock the parts those conditions wear out first, so most jobs are a single visit.

In Colony Park it is usually humidity-swollen wood doors in summer — and because the area has mainly suburban houses with attached two-car garages, mixed with some older central-neighborhood homes, we also see a lot of doors frozen to the slab on cold mornings. Both are stocked on the truck, so most repairs are one and done.

About 64% of Colony Park's housing predates 1980, with a median build year of 1977; on doors that age, worn springs, tired openers, and brittle weather seals are the norm rather than the exception.