# Garage door repair in Delaware > Springs, cables, openers, tracks and seals, diagnosed as one system from our office in Dover. Page: https://www.bluehengaragedoors.com/garage-door-repair ## The short version Garage door repair means finding why the door stopped working right and fixing that part without creating a new problem: broken torsion or extension springs, frayed lift cables, failed openers or photo eyes, bent track, worn rollers, or torn seals. Blue Hen Garage Doors repairs residential and commercial doors across Kent, Sussex and New Castle counties and Maryland's Eastern Shore from an office in Dover. ## Signs your garage door needs a repair visit - The door won't open, or the opener hums and the door barely moves - A loud bang from the garage, then a door that suddenly feels too heavy to lift - A cable hanging loose, or the door sitting lower on one side - Rollers out of the track, or a track that's bent or pulled away from the wall - The door starts down, then reverses or stops for no clear reason - Grinding, popping or shaking that gets worse over a few weeks - Daylight, water or leaves getting in under the bottom seal ## What does garage door repair cover? Garage door repair covers four groups of parts that work as one system: the counterbalance (torsion or extension springs, lift cables and cable drums), the moving door (sections, hinges, rollers and track), the opener with its photo eyes and controls, and the seals that close the gaps. A failure in one group usually shows up as a symptom in another, so we check the whole door instead of swapping the part that looks guilty. The springs do the heavy lifting. DASMA, the Door & Access Systems Manufacturers Association, notes that garage doors can weigh anywhere from 90 pounds to over 500 pounds, and the springs are sized and wound to offset that weight so the door moves with little effort. The opener only guides a balanced door. When a spring weakens or a cable frays, the opener strains, the door drifts or drops, and parts that were fine start to wear. - Spring repair: broken or tired torsion and extension springs, replaced and balanced to the door's weight - Cable repair: frayed or slack lift cables, cable drums and bottom brackets - Opener repair: motors, gears, logic boards, photo eyes, remotes, keypads and wall buttons - Off-track repair: bent track, worn rollers, cracked hinges and doors knocked crooked - Seal replacement: bottom seals, retainers, perimeter weatherstripping and thresholds - Maintenance: lubrication, balance testing, hardware tightening and safety checks ## Why do garage doors break? Most failures trace back to wear, rust, imbalance or impact. Springs, rollers and cables wear by the cycle, and DASMA counts a cycle as one trip from fully closed to fully open and back to closed. Rust speeds that up. DASMA's technical sheet on spring life says rust thins spring wire and leaves pits where fatigue cracks start, and it names salty coastal locations, extreme heat or cold, and frequent rain as hard conditions for springs. According to the state climate office, Delaware has a salty Atlantic coast, hot summers, cold winters and about 45 inches of precipitation a year. Imbalance and impact do the rest. DASMA's guidance on commercial doors puts it plainly: an unbalanced or jerking door puts excess wear on the operator and can cause it to fail early, and the same physics applies in a house garage. Impact covers the bumper that clips a section and the gust that hits a weak door; IBHS, the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety, lists buckled track among the ways high winds defeat garage doors. Even storage causes trouble, since DASMA warns that hanging things from the track can twist it and let the door fall out. ## Should you repair or replace the door? Repair makes sense when the sections are sound and the problem is a part: a spring, a cable, a roller, a seal or an opener board. Replacement starts to make sense when the sections themselves are failing. DASMA's inspection checklist looks for fatigue, cracking and separation of materials in the door sections, and a door showing those signs is a poor candidate for new springs and hardware. Two other cases point toward new equipment. An opener with no photo eyes or edge sensor likely predates the federal safety standard for openers made on or after January 1, 1993, and DASMA's advice is that it's time for a new one. IBHS adds that the original door on an older home is likely not wind-rated, because there were no such requirements before 2006. If a new door is on the table, estimates for new doors are free and next-day. We would rather be direct and honest, so if a repair doesn't make sense, we'll say so. ## What can you check before you call? You can safely look, listen and check the electronics, but leave the spring system alone. With the door closed, IDA, the International Door Association, suggests looking over the springs, cables, rollers, pulleys and hinges for wear, damage or fraying. DASMA's safety guide draws the line: don't loosen or adjust bottom brackets, red-painted fasteners, cables or supports, because they hold spring tension. If the door won't close, look at the photo eyes near the floor first. IDA suggests wiping the lenses with a soft, dry cloth and gently realigning them by hand. Under the safety rules, a door with a sensor problem will only close while someone holds the wall button down, so a door that closes that way points to the eyes. If a remote quits but the wall button works, DASMA's troubleshooting guide says to try fresh batteries first. And if a spring is broken, don't run the door at all until it's replaced. ## How does Blue Hen handle a repair? We treat every repair as a check of the whole door. That means testing balance with the opener disconnected, looking at the parts that wear together, and fixing the cause along with the symptom, so a new cable doesn't go onto a drum that's chewing it up. DASMA tells technicians to test an opener's automatic reverse whenever they install, service or repair a door, an opener, hardware or remotes, and that's how we finish a repair. Our office is at 110 Lafferty Lane in Dover, and Kent County is home turf, but we work across all three Delaware counties and Maryland's Eastern Shore, on houses, farm buildings and businesses. The office is open Monday to Friday, 8am to 4:30pm, at (302) 735-0046. ## From the call to a working door 1. Call (302) 735-0046 or email Dalton@bluehengaragedoors.com and tell us what the door is doing and what you heard. 2. A technician looks over the whole door: springs, cables, drums, rollers, track, opener and seals, not just the part that failed. 3. We explain what we found and your options in plain terms before any work starts. 4. We make the repair and set the door's balance so the opener isn't doing the springs' job. 5. We finish with the safety checks, including the photo eyes and the auto-reverse test. ## Questions ### Can I keep using my garage door with a broken spring? No. DASMA's checklist says that when a spring is broken, the door shouldn't be operated until the spring is replaced. Without it, the weight of the door, which DASMA puts anywhere from 90 to over 500 pounds, is no longer counterbalanced, so it falls on the opener and on whoever tries to lift it. Running it can strip opener parts, kink cables or drop the door. Leave it closed if you can and call us. ### Do you repair doors and openers you didn't install? Yes. Blue Hen services and repairs existing garage doors and openers on homes and businesses, in addition to installing new doors. When you call, tell us what the door is doing, what you heard, and whether the springs sit above the door or along the tracks. If you know the door or opener model, that helps too. ### How do I know whether to repair or replace my door? Repair when the sections are solid and one part has failed. Consider replacing when sections are cracked, separating or badly bent, when the door keeps needing repairs, or when you want insulation, a wind-rated door or a different style. It's a judgment call, and we'll talk it through on site. Estimates for new doors are free and next-day. ### Which areas does Blue Hen cover? Blue Hen works across Kent, Sussex and New Castle counties in Delaware and on Maryland's Eastern Shore, with Kent County as home turf. The office is at 110 Lafferty Lane, Suite F, in Dover and is open Monday to Friday, 8am to 4:30pm. Call (302) 735-0046 or email Dalton@bluehengaragedoors.com to check your address. ## Related - [Garage door spring repair](https://www.bluehengaragedoors.com/garage-door-spring-repair) - [Garage door opener repair](https://www.bluehengaragedoors.com/garage-door-opener-repair) - [Off-track garage door repair](https://www.bluehengaragedoors.com/garage-door-off-track-repair) - [Garage door tune-ups and maintenance](https://www.bluehengaragedoors.com/garage-door-maintenance) ## Sources - [DASMA TDS-167: door and opener checklist](https://www.dasma.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/TDS167.pdf) - [DASMA Technical Data Sheet 176 (PDF)](https://www.dasma.com/wp-content/uploads/pubs/TechDataSheets/CommercialResidential/TDS176.pdf) - [DASMA TDS-190: factors affecting spring cycle life](https://www.dasma.com/wp-content/uploads/pubs/TechDataSheets/CommercialResidential/TDS190.pdf) - [DASMA Technical Data Sheet 160: sectional garage door terminology (PDF)](https://www.dasma.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/TDS160-Sectional-Garage-Door-Terminology.pdf) - [DASMA TDS-375: motor-operated door installation concerns](https://www.dasma.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/TDS375.pdf) - [DASMA Technical Data Sheet 351 (PDF)](https://www.dasma.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/TDS351.pdf) - [DASMA TDS-369: automated residential garage door FAQ](https://www.dasma.com/wp-content/uploads/pubs/TechDataSheets/OperatorElectronics/TDS369.pdf) - [DASMA TDS-374: remote control troubleshooting guide](https://www.dasma.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/TDS374.pdf) - [DASMA safety tips: garage door openers](https://www.dasma.com/safety-tips/garage-door-openers/) - [DASMA opener safety and maintenance guide](https://www.dasma.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Automatic-Garage-Door-Opener-Safety-Maintenance-Guide-trilingual-3-22-24.pdf) - [International Door Association: garage door safety and maintenance](https://doors.org/garage-door-care/care-maintenance) - [IBHS: why a strong garage door matters](https://ibhs.org/why-a-strong-garage-door-matters/) - [16 CFR Part 1211: federal safety standard for garage door openers](https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-16/chapter-II/subchapter-B/part-1211) - [Delaware Climate Office: Delaware's climate](https://climate.udel.edu/delawares-climate/) ## Contact Blue Hen Garage Doors, 110 Lafferty Ln, Suite F, Dover, DE 19901. Phone (302) 735-0046. Email Dalton@bluehengaragedoors.com. Office hours: Monday to Friday, 8am to 4:30pm.