Your Old Garage Door is Costing You Money

The garage door is a marvel of modern convenience the likes of which could never have been imagined just a century ago. It allows you unfettered access to the house with just the push of a button in the worst weather. You can even open or close it from halfway around the world using your smartphone if need be. But like all mechanical devices, the garage door will eventually require the attention of the local Broomfield garage door repair company. And the older it is the more often you’ll need to have someone in to fix the garage door. But falling into disrepair isn’t the only way your garage door is potentially costing you money. Let’s take a look at some others.

Garage Door Repair and Other Ways Your Door Is Costing You Money

Today’s garage doors are energy efficient, dependable, and attractive. But if your door is more than ten years old, it likely falls short in all those categories (plus a few more). Here are some ways an old garage door can wind up being a drain on your finances.

• Lost Heat - Many older doors are not properly insulated. In some cases that’s because the insulation has been compromised. But in many other cases there simply wasn’t any insulation to begin with. A poorly insulated garage door means a cold garage that pulls heat out of adjoining rooms. Once that expensive heated air is pulled into the garage it immediately escapes into the atmosphere through the garage door.
• Energy Inefficiency - Today’s garage door openers have highly efficient electric motors that are light years ahead of what was available twenty (or even ten years ago). The fact is, if your garage door opener is more than a decade old, you’re wasting energy every time it opens and closes the door. Inefficient garage doors cause higher energy costs, wasting money every time you use it.
• Increased Maintenance Costs - If your garage door is old chances are you’re calling for garage door repair in Loveland or Broomfield way more often than you used to. And while we’re always happy to answer a customer’s call for help there comes a time when the law of diminishing returns takes over. When that happens you’re just financially better off having the garage door repair company install a brand new door.
• Dragging Down Home Value - This is an indirect but very real way your old garage door is affecting you financially. While home valuation is based at least in part on the structural integrity of the house it’s also impacted by what’s called ‘curb appeal’. In other words, if the old garage door drags down the way the house looks from the street it also drags down the value of the house.

Other Reasons to Say Goodbye to Your Old Garage Door

While there are lots of financial reasons to move on from an old garage door money shouldn’t be the only deciding factor. You also need to consider how the old door is impacting those in the house.

• It’s Keeping Everyone Awake - The older garage doors get and the more times you need to call for a garage door repair or garage door opener repair the louder the door usually becomes. It can reach the point that all the squeaking and squealing wakes everyone up if you have to leave the house early or come home late. The best way to solve this problem is to invest in a new door.
• It’s Neither Safe Nor Secure - Not only is an old garage door a heat vacuum, an eyesore, and a noise factory it’s also typically far less safe and secure than a new garage door. The older the door the greater the chance of a failure of the auto-reverse system. The older the door the looser it is in the frame and the easier it is to pry open. The fact is new features such as remote lockout, an updated and more secure emergency release mechanism, and apps that allow you to monitor who is opening the garage door day and night allow for a much safer and more secure home.
• It’s Dangerous - When it comes to garage doors most of the attention is focused on the panels, the opener, and the remote. But a garage door mechanism is so much more. There are the springs, the cables, the tracks, the rollers, and other components and they age right along with the motor and the panels. As they do they increase the chances of an accident occurring. That might take the form of an auto-reverse failure. Or the door may pop out of its track when it’s overhead. Or the spring may snap sending the door crashing to the ground.

The Bottom Line

At A Better Garage Door, we’ve been conducting garage door repair in Broomfield, CO, and vicinity for many years and have seen just about everything. And that includes the many ways old garage doors can become a financial, practical, and security liability. If your garage door is more than ten years old it’s time to stop calling for garage door repair and consider replacing it. In most cases, a new door will cost about the same as just a few visits from the repairman. So why keep putting patches on your old door when you can have a brand-new door for the same price? Visit our website's page featuring all garage doors available for installation and our online garage door designer.