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Good Neighbor Podcast: Auburn and Opelika
With her genuinely good heart and a wealth of experience behind her, Susannah works to connect local business and non-profit leaders to their neighbors. In a community like ours in which so many have invested their lives, there are fantastic stories all around us that motivate and inspire, often right next door. She hopes to share some of those here, on the Good Neighbor Podcast. Book an interview today at GNPAuburn.com
Good Neighbor Podcast: Auburn and Opelika
Ep.#63: Securing Your Home: Brad Hickman's Guide to Garage Door Safety and Maintenance with River City Door Company
Unlock the secrets to keeping your garage door secure and well-maintained with expert advice from Brad Hickman, owner of River City Door Company. Many homeowners often overlook the importance of regular garage door maintenance, leading to safety hazards like broken springs and unbalanced doors. Brad shares invaluable tips on conducting annual servicing and visual inspections to prevent costly repairs and ensure your door's safety. You'll also gain insights into the latest technological advancements, such as safety sensors and rolling code technology, that are designed to enhance both security and functionality.
As we explore this essential topic, you'll learn practical tips for maintaining your garage door, including lubricating moving parts and identifying warning signs of potential issues. We also highlight when it's time to consider replacing outdated garage door systems that lack modern safety features. Plus, find out how to connect with River City Door Company for all your garage door needs, whether online or by phone. Don't miss this opportunity to support local businesses and nominate your favorites for future features on the Good Neighbor Podcast. With Brad's expert insights, you’ll be better equipped to maintain a safe and efficient garage door system.
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Susanna Hodges.
Speaker 2:Welcome With me today is Brad Hickman. He's the owner of the River City Door Company. Welcome, Brad. Thanks so much for being with me.
Speaker 3:Thanks, susanna, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. Our topic today is garage door safety. Now, I think this is something that people don't automatically think about when they've got a garage door. It's either working or it's not. But you are with me today to tell me a little bit about what are some of the most common garage door safety issues that homeowners don't think about and how can regular maintenance kind of prevent the risks.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so the most common things that we see really could be prevented with some sort of maintenance plan.
Speaker 3:right, you know we recommend once a year to have your garage door serviced, and you know the end result we see is people spending more money due to, you know, a lack of maintenance and service on the garage door and it can lead to a lot of unsafe issues of, you know, continuing to operate a door with broken springs. You know, just from a visual inspection you would see, but you get an unbalanced door, you get frayed cables, you get stripped gears, all these things that could, you know, end up with your door falling completely apart or falling out of the tracks. So yeah, we want to get ahead of those right.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, what are some of the things that you should look out for that might indicate that there's some maintenance needed.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so any kind of binding loud? You know noises that seem unusual when your door is going up and down, I mean it's going to make some noise. We've got a lot of metal on metal rolling in that garage door, but you know any loud, odd noises that you might hear. You want to visually inspect that door too. You want to make sure your cables aren't fraying those sorts of things. Anytime you get a door that won't go down right, you're hitting the button and the door is starting down and reversing back up. That's a failure of your safety sensors at the bottom of the door, and so you know that would be one of the biggest things that you need to look out for.
Speaker 2:So you mentioned, like safety sensors, there's a lot of technology involved with garage doors. What are some of the features that you know new garage doors have that keep things safe?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so any garage door operator manufactured after 1993 had to have safety sensors on it, and they're mounted at the bottom of your door tracks. They can be no higher than six inches off the floor, and so that's one of the biggest safety features there. So what it's meant to do is to stop and reverse that door. If you know there's a beam that's shot across the opening and if that beam is broken it sends the door back up, and it's really there to prevent injuries to children and pets and those kinds of things. Right, there's rolling code technology now, where your remote and your operator sync up every time it's used and it's changing the code so people can't duplicate it and break into your garage.
Speaker 3:Uh, and there's also what we call four settings. So uh, and everything is electronic now, but uh, it's built into the motor, but it essentially tells that motor how much force to use to push that door down, and so that's a setting that you, you know that's that has to be pretty precise. And uh, and, and it and it also has a uh auto feature. So if that force is pushing that door down and the door comes in contact with an object, it's not going to say it's not going to damage the object, but it's going to stop the door and reverse it back up.
Speaker 2:Okay, all right. So what are some things homeowners can do to keep their garage door working properly?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think you know, if you keep the moving parts lubricated with silicone-free lubricant, we sell it here, they sell it at big box stores as well. But you wanna make sure you're lubricating your hinges and rollers and your torsion spring that's typically above the door. You wanna use some grease on your operator rails and to keep free flowing movement there. So, visually inspecting the door every couple of months, you know, just looking it over, make sure everything looks right to you, right, no bolts are missing, no hinges are flapping or anything like that. And you know.
Speaker 3:And if you see something that looks out of the ordinary, call somebody to help Absolutely.
Speaker 2:So you know, being a homeowner, when do you suggest that a homeowner should maybe replace their garage door or maybe replace their system that operates the door? When it comes to, you know, safety and durability type of issues, yeah.
Speaker 3:So what we see is, you know, usually a lack of preventative maintenance. You know the door is going to have a lot of wear and tear on it and we, you know we normally assess it from a standpoint is, you know, is it going to cost you, you know, more in the long run, right To keep this thing working? And so we want to start looking at options then, and we're always open to repair if you want to repair. But we're going to give you some options to to maybe extend that warranty for you, get a better system in there, more up-to-date system. Certainly, anytime that we run across a operator system that doesn't have photo eyes, we have to change that out. Now you can't work on those things anymore. So, and then you know, anything with cracked or ripped sections, you know we can, you can brace them up to a certain extent. We're going to, we're going to suggest that you go ahead and replace that as well.
Speaker 2:Cracks are just going to get worse, right? Oh yeah, so how? How does River City Doors handle emergency repairs and, for you know, for garage doors that might be posing an immediate safety risk?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we, you know we try to respond same day to any calls that we get. We do have, we do get booked out. We've created what we call an urgency list. Anytime we're full, we add folks to our urgency list as our day's progressing and our technicians if they get ahead or something like that, we're fitting in calls where we can to get to them.
Speaker 3:On the commercial side of our business. We do have 24-hour service on the commercial side of our business, but residentially. We're trying to work with people as much as we can on timeframes and getting them on our urgency list and taking care of it as quick as possible.
Speaker 2:Do you find people that have maybe a garage door that's older than 1993? You said a lot of the safety. Things are not on those older models.
Speaker 3:Do you come across those?
Speaker 2:very often.
Speaker 3:There's not a lot of them out there anymore, but we do run into a handful a year. We just had one a couple of weeks ago, actually kind of front of mind, but yeah, it's still out there, yeah.
Speaker 2:So these older doors can be outfitted with the safety features, or do you just recommend replacing?
Speaker 3:them. So the door itself if your door's, you know, 30 years old, we can still work with it If it's in good shape. What we would need to do is replace the motor and the operation, and all the new operators are going to come with all your new safety functions.
Speaker 2:Well, tell us a little bit about how to get in touch with you and of how to find out more information about River City Door Company.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you can always reach us online at rivercitydoorscom. You can fill out a service form right there and you can also give us a call 706-565-5305.
Speaker 2:All right, well, thanks so much for being with me. I appreciate your time today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you. Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast, auburn. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpauburncom. That's gnpauburncom, or call 334-429-7404.