Winters in Canada can get very harsh. Temperatures regularly drop below freezing and this can have many effects on a lot of things, including your house and many of the fittings that are outside. Weathering such extreme temperatures can be difficult, and for your garage doors, you need to prepare in advance to ensure optimal functioning of the door, even when you have a blizzard outside. We’ll look at how you can insulate and protect your garage doors from the harsh Canadian winters to ensure they keep working like a dream.
But first, you might ask, why bother with protecting your garage doors from harsh winters? They’re supposed to be outside, and they can pretty much weather the winter without any fault. That unfortunately, is not the case. With winters as extreme as in Canada, everything is affected, and garage doors are no exception. Before we go into how you can protect your garage doors from harsh Canadian winters, let’s look at how extreme cold can affect garage doors.
How does extreme cold affect your garage doors?
With extreme temperatures, materials behave differently. Some may contract, some may expand, and that affects the way that they can be used. Here’s how extreme cold affects your garage doors.
Metal shrinkage
With cold weather, metal tends to contract, which causes the garage door components like hinges, springs and any other parts to shrink in size. While this is barely noticeable, it does and will affect your garage door performance. Metal parts can snap if opened and some springs are prone to cracking under extreme temperature functioning. All of these can seriously affect the performance of your garage doors.
No insulation from low temperatures
With an unprotected garage door, you’re essentially asking for a chilly time within your home. That is because if your garage door, which covers a lot of surface area of your house, is not insulated, cold will seep in from the doors and will lower the temperature fo the entire house. This will result in an increase in your heating bill and power bills, and will further make your house uncomfortable. While this isn’t directly related to the performance of the garage doors, it will still have an effect on your home.
Sensors fogged up
With garage doors, another problem you can have with harsh winters is the garage door sensors fogging up, which is very common and if happens, can affect the functioning of the doors. Extreme cold will cause the sensors to fog up, which it will then perceive as an obstruction. This may cause the garage doors to be non-responsive or fail to open when prompted. In that case, upkeep and maintenance become very important.
Garage doors stuck together
With extremely cold temperatures, like the ones Canada routinely has, garage doors getting stuck together is also very common and very problematic. Many garage doors will fail to open or budge before opening, which is a sign that your garage doors need to be winterized and maintained, since this adversely affects their performance, and in extreme cases, could end up damaging the doors themselves.
Water absorption issues
Lastly, in extremely cold weather, blizzard-like conditions, if you have wooden garage doors, you always run the risk of water absorption through the wooden doors. This can cause the wooden garage doors to swell and completely throw the doors in disarray, where they will fail to close and open properly and wont even sit properly within the space. This requires immediate attention and can really be detrimental to the functioning of the garage doors.
How to protect garage doors from harsh winters and prevent this?
Now, onwards to understanding how you can protect your garage doors from the harsh winters of Canada, and how you can prevent the above from affecting your garage.
Insulation is important
The first solution is obviously to get insulation for the garage doors. Insulation will do a lot for the doors; for instance, it will protect them from the harsh effects of sub-zero temperatures that are so characteristic of Canada. It will also keep moisture and water seepage out of the garage doors, and insulation will also ensure that the cold that seeps in via the garage doors no longer stays a problem. Furthermore, with insulation, your garage doors will not freeze and stick together and proper insulation will also ensure that the doors stay operational during blizzard-like conditions.
Update your weather-stripping
Many garage doors come with what is called ‘weatherstripping’, which is protection against extreme weather for your garage doors. Weatherstripping tends to wear out after some time, which could put your garage doors at risk of being affected by extreme weather, whether it is cold or heat. Weatherstripping, when updated, will provide complete protection from the effects of extreme weather and will ensure that nothing untoward happens to your garage doors.
Lubricate moving parts
In extreme cold, moving parts are also affected by the garage doors. From metal hinges to the belts that might drive any other moving part, all of them are affected by the extreme cold. Ice, when formed on metal hinges, obstructs their movement by a lot and can hamper their proper functioning. Similarly, any other moving object might face icing in extreme cold, and maintenance including lubrication is important to keep functionality for these parts. Subsequently, the garage doors will also stay functional.
Clean and wipe down sensors
Garage doors operate on the input of the sensors, and if the sensors malfunction, this could mean some serious damage for your garage doors. Winters can affect the functioning of garage door sensors, such as fogging them or in blizzard conditions, icing them. Since they cant optimally function then, your garage door will lose functionality. In order to prevent that, routinely clean and wipe down on your garage door sensors in cold weather to keep them from freezing over.
Keep components clear from any water pipes/ bodies
Garage door components need to be kept away from any water pipes that might be going through the garage. In extreme cold, water pipes will also contract, and this can damage the pipes, cause leakage and could potentially make it so that the water could then damage the electrical components of the garage door. To ensure that nothing like that happens, if you have any water pipes or lines going through the garage, you can cover them and if there is any movable part in the vicinity of the pipes, remove it. This way, even if something does happen to the water pipes, your garage doors and its components will stay safe.
De-ice garage doors regularly
In case of blizzards, which are common in Canada, your right garage doors will have sheets of ice frozen and stuck on them. During operation, they may detach from the door and fall down, damaging your vehicle or even a person in close vicinity of the doors. Even if they don’t fall, these sheets of ice are extra weight on the door, and may cause machine trouble when you try to open them. In situations like these, regularly de-ice your garage doors and ensure that no excess ice is on the doors. This way, you’ll also increase the lifespan of your garage doors.
Universal Doors: one-stop fix for all garage door issues
Garage doors freezing over in extreme cold weather is something that can be tackled easily. With proper maintenance and an understanding of how detrimental icing and cold weather can be for your garage doors, you can take good care of your garage doors and make sure that they always look and perform well. Regular maintenance, oiling and lubrication of the moving parts and replacing the old worn-out parts will always help.
However, if the DIY process isn’t of your liking, you can always rely on Universal Doors to have the best solutions for any issue you might face with your garage doors. Whether its any technical issue or cold weather affecting the performance of the garage doors, Universal Doors has solutions that will keep your garage door looking like new and operating flawlessly. Give your garage doors the treatment they deserve with Universal Doors. Since they form a good part of the fascia of the house, maintenance will keep the doors looking better and enhancing the look of your house.
With Universal Doors, you get a wide variety and range of doors that might suit your home; if not, we also have a range of doors that are excellent for businesses and security applications. With our rollup doors, you can experience the last word in security, while commercial and residential doors boast both beauty, an aesthetic look and strong, durable construction that provide for good security from intruders looking to gain access into your home or business. With Universal Doors, you get the best of both worlds: looks that will elevate your home and security that will comfort you.