Garage Door Repair – Holiday Specials

The holidays are a time for presents and parties, which means money is always being spent! There is nothing worse than experiencing garage door issues during the holiday. We don’t want this to be an area where you have to spend tons of money. So we decided to show you, our customer, that we are providing amazing specials for this holiday season.

To avoid having major garage door repairs in your future, it’s a smart idea to do regular maintenance check-ups. That’s why we have provided you with our Tune & Lube Special. If you are trying to improve the overall look of your home, before family comes into town, we have a discount on any new garage door & opener.

Take this holiday season to prepare your home for the new year, by allowing us the opportunity to take care of all of your garage door repairs. Make your home holiday ready! Parker Garage Doors & More is proud to be the Valley’s one-stop source for quality garage door services.

Springs
Openers
New Garage Doors
Roller Replacements
Commercial Garage Replacements

For more information on how we can help you with your garage door repairs, call us at:

Phoenix Area – 602-870-9848

Lake Havasu & Parker, AZ – 928) 216-5756

The Haunted Garage! Making Your Garage Halloween Ready

Halloween is just around the corner and soon the streets will be filled with costumed kids in search of candy and snacks. Well, instead of just greeting trick or treaters at the front door this year why not give them a more immersive experience with your very own Haunted Garage. Here’s a few ideas on setting up your very own haunted garage:

Clean and Organize

The first step of creating your haunted environment is going to be cleaning and organizing. Remove any clutter or potentially dangerous items like sharp objects or flammable liquids. Check for spots of oil or other things that may cause someone to slip. Tape down any cords or wires that someone could trip on. Hang sheets in front of shelves to hide them from view and secure anything that could be easily knocked over.

A Haunted Floor Plan

Any good haunted house is divided into sections that each provide their own special scare. Make your entrance and exit areas obvious. Put a special haunt in each section like an escaped madman, hanging skeleton, or pop-up ghost. Use something structurally sound like thick cardboard to divide the sections. It’s also fun to create tubes or crawl ways from boxes to get from room to room. Bear in mind the ages of children in your neighborhood as you won’t want to make it too scary for young children.

Props and Decorations

Here’s where you get to be really creative. Your local Halloween store will have more than enough props and decorations to give you ideas on your haunted design. Don’t forget to use subtle areas of your garage like a tall, barely-lit scary figure in the corner of the room or rubber spiders hanging from strings that you catch out of the corner of your eye. Dry ice or fog machines are create ways to add scary ambiance to your garage but make sure it’s well ventilated or makes it too hard to see. Avoid props that can be easily knocked over or damaged. It’s hard to predict how a scared kids may react.

Scary Lights and Sound

No haunted house (or garage) is complete without it’s own soundtrack of scary music, moaning ghosts and howling werewolves. There are plenty of sound effect websites to help you create one. Use different lighting to enhance the experience like strobe lights or black lights. You can also use lights to cast creepy shadows on the wall. But also remember darkness is great way to fire kids imagination so use that to your advantage.

The Outside

The approach to your haunted garage should be just as spooky. Consider making a theme for your haunted garage such as a haunted castle or insane asylum. Decorate the path to the entrance with gravestones, zombies crawling out of the ground, and plenty of spider webs. A story line that you tell kids before entering can help create the mood such as a wild animal is loose and in the garage, or an escaped madman is living there. Again, keep ages in mind.

Finding Actors

It’s usually not hard to conjure up a few friends to participate in your haunted house. Teenagers that are just a little too old to trick our treat may be willing to join in the fun (which also keeps them busy from creating their own mischief.)

While a haunted garage is a great way to make your house the most popular spot on the block, remember Halloween is all about having fun and being safe. And remember, there should be a sufficient reward for surviving the haunted garage when kids exit!

Give Your Garage a Showroom Floor

If there’s one area of the garage that takes a lot of abuse it’s the floor. It gets covered with oil leaks, spilled paint, tire marks, mud and dirt. A few of these leaks and fluids can leave unsightly, permanent stains on your garage floor. Sure, we may throw a piece of cardboard or kitty litter down to absorb leaks from our vehicles, but that looks just as bad as stains. If this is the state of your garage you may want to consider painting your garage floor.

Painting your garage floor has a few benefits. Number one, it’s going to enhance the look of your garage ten-fold giving it a shiny, showroom floor look. Next, assuming you use the right kind of paint, the floor will be spill resistant to just about any fluid that falls on it. It also has an anti-skid effect helping you get grip on those snowy or rainy days.

If you choose to take on this task, preparation is key. It’s generally recommended to add two coats to the floor, so plan on the job taking at least two days as you will need time for the first coat to dry before applying the second. You will need to clear the garage floor and tape off the bottom edges of the wall. The floor will need to be swept or even hosed completely clean to help the paint bond to it. You may need a de-greaser to get rid of stubborn oil stains. It also means your car will be parked outside of the garage for some time, so make sure it is locked and secure.

There are a few types of floor paints, but epoxy is considered the best choice. Epoxy paint consists of two liquids with one being a catalyzing agent. This means when it dries, it forms a nice solid coat which is both weather and stain resistant. The paint often comes with color chips or flakes you can add to help disguise imperfections on your concrete floor. For best results, try to apply the paint when it’s between 50 and 80 degrees outside.

Once you are finished, you will be tempted to park your car on it right away but it’s recommended to wait 72 hours before driving on it.

Are You Having Issues Opening Your Garage Door?

You go to open your garage door…and nothing, nada, nope it’s just not opening. When hiring someone to repair your garage it’s hard to know what you really need and who to really trust. But, unless you’ve received some training on repairing garages, you should contact a professional garage door technician to tell you what’s wrong and how to fix it. However, there are a few simple things you can check when yourself when your garage door won’t open before calling for help.

No Power

This is a common issue that most people forget about. Garage door openers require electricity so if your opener is not responding make sure the motor is plugged in. If it is plugged in, make sure the outlet is working by plugging another electrical device into it.

Photo Eye Sensor Misaligned or Dirty

You photo eye sensors are there to stop your garage from closing on an object. They create a beam across the bottom length of your garage door and when that beam is broken, your garage door stops working or reverses. If one of the photo eyes gets bumped, it can become misaligned with the other and disrupt the beam connection. Most photo eyes have a red and green light indicator to show when they are properly aligned.

Likewise, if an eye becomes dirty, it can stop your garage from functioning. Clean both sensors with a tissue and see if that corrects your problem.

Dead Batteries

Garage door remotes use very little power so we often forget that they even have batteries. But if your garage door remote opener suddenly stops it’s a good possibility that batteries are dead. If it’s not the batteries, you may have to reprogram your remote. Check your garage door opener documentation for programming instructions.

Broken Wires

Visually inspect your garage door opener to see if any wires may be loose or disconnected. We don’t recommend you try to fix them as you may be a risk of getting shocked. But it will at least give you an idea of what the problem is.

These are just a few ways to check your garage door issues. In the event you do have a technician come to inspect your garage problems and to give you a quote for repairs, make sure they include all costs that are involved in writing so that there are no hidden fees. Check the reputation of the company via online reviews and the Better Business Bureau. Be wary of anyone who asks for money upfront or wants a significant deposit. Use your gut instincts as well. If you feel someone may not be on the level, you probably are right.

Common Garage Door Symptoms & Their Causes

Garage doors seem to have a knack for breaking at the most inconvenient times. Either it’s when you’re getting ready to go to work or school, right when you are trying to leave on vacation, or trying to get to that important job interview or doctors appointment. Regardless of when it happens, it’s always important to get it fixed quick and get it done right.

But what if there was a way to prevent your garage from breaking before it happened? The truth is that garage doors will usually give some indication of a problem before they break. Watching for these symptoms and addressing them might just save you from having a major garage door problem.

Noisy Garage Operation

Noisy garage doors are probably the easiest way to detect you door needs service. Sometimes the issue can be fixed with simple lubrication. Other times it may indicate that railings are bent or that a spring may be about to break. If your garage is squeaking or noisy, it’s probably best to have a professional examine the door to help remedy the problem before it becomes to serious of an issue.

Garage Door Hesitates

If you find that you have to push your garage door opener several times before you door opens or closes, this may indicate there is a problem. Many times, the safety sensors can become misaligned or the lenses on the sensors could be dirty. Other times it may mean the wiring is faulty in your opener and needs to be replaced. Or it may just be something a simple as replacing the batteries in your remote.

Door Wobbles or Not Aligned

You may notice that your door seems slightly out of line with one side touching the ground before the other when closing the door. This is a major symptom as it may mean your lift cable is stretching, slipping, or about to break. It also may mean that one of your springs has less tension than the other and on its way to failing. It can also mean that the railing has bent and needs fixing.

Smell of Burning Plastic or Rubber

This is a very serious issue and should be addressed immediately. This could mean wiring is faulty or exposed and making contact with the inside of the opener. It could also mean the motor is bad and needs replacing. There have even been instances where birds have build nests within openers which in turn create a fire hazard. If you notice a burning smell or notice black smoke residue above your opener, contact a professional immediately. You may just save your home from burning down.

If you notice anything out of the ordinary with your garage door operation, we highly recommend that you contact Parker Garage Doors. We can send an expert technician out to examine the issue and recommend the best course of action. We operate 24 hours, seven days a week.

New Garage Door Opener

The heart of any automatic garage door system is the garage door opener. Garage doors can weigh up to 300 lbs or more so it’s important to have an opener that has sufficient power but is able to operate quietly and smoothly. If you take a moment to think about how many times you open and close your garage during the year, you’ll quickly realize what a workhorse your garage door opener really is. Today we thought we would go over some of the different types of garage door openers that are available.

Belt Drive System
Probably the most popular garage door opener on the market today, the belt drive system lifts the door via a melted-reinforced rubber belt that is as strong as a steel-belted tire. The main reason for their popularity is their quiet and smooth operation compared to other openers.

Chain Drive System
The is by far the most common and least expensive type of garage door opener. Exactly like it sounds, this system uses a metal chain to lift the door up and down along its track. While these systems are fairly easy to maintain, they tend to be noisier than other types of openers.

Screw Drive Systems
These systems are not as popular as they once were but you will still find some manufacturers that feature them. Screw drives systems use a lifting mechanism that runs along a threaded steel rod. The upside is they are very quiet when properly lubricated, and the downside is they can be noisy if not properly lubricated. Other, than lubrication, however, they are very low maintenance.

Jackshaft Openers
The main difference between this type of system and other systems is that this opener is mounted on the wall next to the garage door instead of the middle of the ceiling. Pulleys and cables drive a torsion bar to raise and lower the garage door. This system is reliable and quiet and perfect for those wanting to save space in their garage.

There are many things to consider when you are in the market for a new garage door opener. Parker Garage Doors can offer expert advice on whichever type of garage door opener you choose and install it at an affordable price. Please visit our website to learn more on how Parker Garage can help you!

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