How to Reduce Your Garage Door's Chances of Freezing Shut

Whether you love the winter weather in Denver or you hate it, there is one fact we cannot deny. With the freezing temperatures come certain challenges that we have to overcome if we want to keep our garage doors operating flawlessly. One of the more serious challenges is that of ensuring your door never gets frozen shut during the colder months of the year. As garage door repair specialists operating out of Parker and Broomfield, CO, we have seen more than our fair share of frozen shut doors over the years and have developed some useful strategies that we use to keep our own doors operating in all weather conditions. Today, we would like to share those strategies with you in the hope they may help you to enjoy a hassle-free winter this year.

Tips from Our Garage Door Repair Broomfield and Parker Teams

If you want to enjoy a trouble-free winter and not have to worry about whether your garage door will be frozen shut in the morning, try following our top tips and strategies for protecting your door in icy conditions.

• Keep Your Driveway Clear – A buildup of snow and ice on your driveway is a clear and present threat to your garage door and should be dealt with swiftly. Whenever the prevailing weather conditions result in snowfall or rain followed by freezing temperatures, you need to get outside with your shovel or snow blower and start clearing it away. A clear and dry driveway will significantly reduce the chances of your garage door freezing shut when the weather turns cold.
• Clear All Ice From the Door – Using a handy tool such as an ice scraper, you should chip away any ice that has formed on the door itself. When you are doing this, be careful not to damage the weather stripping or door seals as this could make it harder to keep the snow and ice out of your garage this winter. If you use a plastic/rubber scraper and go carefully, you should be able to clear away all of the ice without damaging your door.

Just by following these two tips, you can help to avoid freezing conditions affecting your garage door this winter but if you want to make completely sure, we recommend taking the preparatory actions outlined in the next section as well.

Preparation to Avoid a Stuck Garage Door in Freezing Conditions

You can lower the chances of your door becoming frozen shut by taking the following preventative measures:

• Install a Heater in Your Garage – If you only use your garage to store your car and perhaps some household tools too, you might think that installing a heater would be a waste of money. However, when battling freezing conditions, a garage heater can prove to be a very useful weapon. Either a gas or electric heater will be fine for this purpose: you are simply aiming to raise the inside temperature to a point where water is unable to freeze, i.e. a temperature above 32 degrees Fahrenheit. In addition to preventing water from freezing on the surface of your garage floor, a heater will also help to evaporate any water that does make its way inside, keeping the whole space clean and dry.
• Lubricate All Moving Components – Applying a good-quality lubricant to the moving components of your garage door opening mechanism will help to ensure it does not freeze in the winter. When you are applying the lubricant, don’t forget the torsion and extension springs. Broken garage door springs are a major cause of stuck doors during the colder months of the year but you can protect them from the worst effects of freezing temperatures with a generous application of a decent oil or grease lubricant.
• Open and Close the Door More Frequently – One of the best defenses against a frozen shut garage door is to follow a regular opening and closing schedule. Even when you don’t need to enter or exit your garage, we recommend opening it a couple of times or so every day. By doing so you will make it much harder for ice to gain a foothold and freeze the door in its closed position.
• Spread Salt or Grit on Your Driveway and Just Inside Your Garage Door – A liberal application of salt or grit will help to prevent any standing water from freezing on your driveway or garage floor during the colder months of the year. Some people are hesitant to follow this particular suggestion because of the resulting mess but you can easily clean it away with a broom once the weather starts to warm up again. If you want to minimize any potential mess, just sprinkle salt at the point where your door meets the ground when it closes.

If you follow all of the above advice and you still have a problem opening your garage door this winter, or at any other time of the year, your best course of action is to call a local professional for assistance. If you live close to Parker or Broomfield, CO, you are welcome to contact us at any time. If you live in another part of the country completely, try searching for ‘garage door repair near me’ and calling a few of the companies you find. Any reputable overhead door repair team should be able to free your garage door and get it working properly again.