Cables, Rollers and Track Repair in Green Bay, WI

Off-track doors, snapped cables and the rollers that go first in a cold, salted garage.

The cables do the work the springs make possible: they transfer the counterbalance to the bottom of the door. When one frays, slips its drum or snaps, the door typically goes crooked, jams in the opening or drops on one side. Do not force it and do not use the opener again until someone has looked at it, because a door hanging on one cable is held by far less than it was designed to hang from.

Rollers are the cheapest part on the door and they determine how everything else wears. Builders normally fit steel rollers with exposed bearings, which are loud, short-lived and poorly suited to a garage that gets damp and salty every winter. Exposed bearings collect grit and brine, seize, and then grind flat spots into themselves. Nylon rollers with sealed bearings cost a little more, run much quieter and are considerably better in this climate. On a door that is otherwise sound, replacing a worn set is one of the better value repairs available.

Track problems are usually mechanical rather than structural here. A bent track from a bumper, a loose bracket, or a door racked slightly out of square by being forced when the seal was frozen down. That last one is the local special: a door that was yanked open against ice in February frequently develops a tracking problem that shows up months later.

If a door binds at one particular point in its travel rather than throughout, that is almost always the track or a roller rather than the springs. Worth mentioning to whoever looks at it, because it narrows the job considerably.