A fall service visit should test every door's balance and safety reversal, check springs, cables, rollers and hinges for wear, lubricate the moving parts, look at bottom seals and weather strips, and confirm the operator and its photo eyes work as they should. Each door should be written up so you know what needs repair before a cold snap finds it first. Most doors take under an hour.
Why fall is the right time to service doors
In Vancouver, most of the year's rain falls between October and April. Frost only shows up on a handful of nights, but those first cold mornings are when tired springs tend to give out. A door that has been running on a worn spring all summer often picks the coldest morning of the month to stop.
A fall visit gives you a chance to find that spring, and the frayed cable or flat-spotted roller beside it, while you can still choose when the repair happens. For a parkade entrance in Mount Pleasant or a loading bay in Marpole, that choice is the difference between a planned morning and a door stuck open overnight.
What the technician should check on each door
Every door on the property should get the same basic check, whether it is a sectional door on a service bay, a rolling steel door on a warehouse or the overhead door at a strata parkade.
- Balance. With the operator disconnected, a balanced sectional door should stay roughly where it is left partway up. A door that drops or climbs on its own has a spring problem.
- Springs. Look for gaps in the coils, rust, and signs that a spring has been stretched or replaced with the wrong size.
- Cables and drums. Frayed strands, kinks or a cable riding off its drum are a sign of trouble ahead.
- Rollers and hinges. Cracked or wobbling rollers and worn hinge pins make a door noisy and jerky and add load to the operator.
- Track and brackets. Bent track, loose fasteners and brackets that have shifted after a vehicle bump.
- Lubrication. Hinges, roller bearings and springs get a suitable lubricant. Tracks are cleaned rather than greased.
- Safety reversal. The door should reverse when it meets an obstruction and when the photo eye beam is broken.
- Operator and controls. Wall buttons, remotes, the receiver, travel limits and any signs the motor is running hot.
Seals, weather strips and the rain
Once the wet season starts, a torn bottom seal lets water, leaves and grit into the building. On a parkade door it also lets the wind push rain across the entry slab, which is a slip risk for residents walking in. The visit should note which seals are cracked, flattened or missing so they can be replaced before the heavier storms.
Parkade doors get extra attention
Strata parkade doors in condo buildings cycle many times a day, every day. Doors in Kitsilano and Hastings-Sunrise towers see the same pattern: a busy morning rush, then a steady stream through the evening. For those doors the visit should also check the safety edge along the bottom, the photo eyes on both sides, and how cleanly the door stops at the top and bottom of its travel.
What you should get after the visit
A useful service visit ends with a short written note for each door. It should cover what was done, what was found, and what needs attention, sorted by how soon.
Keep these notes together. Over a few years they give you a history of each door, which helps when a tenant, a council or an insurer asks for maintenance records, and when you are deciding whether to keep repairing an older door or start budgeting for a new one.
Questions worth asking
- Which doors have springs near the end of their life?
- Is any door out of balance, and is that putting strain on its operator?
- Did every door pass its safety reversal test?
- Which seals should be replaced before winter?
- Does any door need a follow-up visit, and how long would it be out of use?
Planning the visit around the building
Most doors take under an hour. With several doors on one site, the visit can be staged so only one entrance is out of use at a time. For a parkade, tell residents the day before and keep a second entry or a manual option open if the building has one. For a loading bay, book around delivery windows.
If you look after several properties across the city, putting them on one schedule makes it easier to keep records consistent and to catch the same kind of wear across similar doors.
What you can watch for between visits
Staff and residents are often the first to notice a problem. Ask them to report a door that is louder than usual, slower, uneven as it travels, or that reverses without a reason. Keep people and vehicles clear of any door that makes a loud bang, hangs crooked or has a loose cable. Do not try to adjust or wind springs yourself. They hold a lot of stored energy and can cause serious injury.
When it makes sense to call a professional
If none of your doors has been looked at in the past year, or you have no records at all, fall is a sensible time to book a service visit. The same goes for any door that already shows a warning sign. A technician can tell you which doors are fine for the winter, which need a small repair now, and which should be planned for later, so the first cold snap does not make that decision for you.