With summer just around the corner, now is the perfect time to start preparing your garage for those hot sunny months! Ensuring sure your garage stays reliable during this time may require some extra maintenance. With this in mind, we have come up with several things you can do to prepare your garage for summer.

 

De-cluttering

Perhaps the most important and fundamental way to begin preparing your garage for summer is to have a full-scale de-clutter. Often our garages can become a place to store absolutely everything that we don’t need use of. Making your garage a more beneficial and productive area of your home can rapidly change the way you think about this space.

Begin by cordoning off a weekend to get it into shape. Get friends and family to help if needs be. Make sure you organise as much as you can into neat and easy-to-divide sections so that when you return you know exactly where you left everything. Also make sure that you have a pile left for stuff you want to chuck out, as unwanted junk can massively clutter up the garage!

Maintaining garage doors

Ensuring your garage door is safe for use by the whole family is important. Since the door is the largest moving piece of your garage, this requires a bit more attention. Check the manual release handle and the door panels to make sure there are no cracks, loose pieces, damage, or separations. Visually check all hinges, fasteners, springs, and brackets too.

Lubrication

You might not have considered that garage doors can often benefit from some lubrication. All the moving parts (tracks, springs, hinges) of your garage door requires proper lubrication to operate as smoothly as possible. You can also clean out the garage door track to make sure there is no debris or dirt causing the improper operation of the door.

Cleaning garage doors

Using mild tap water or soap, gently scrub your garage door clean of any dirt or debris. Avoid using harsh detergents on the door, as abrasive cleaners such as these could potentially damage the paint. For particularly tough stains, you can spot-clean with some diluted bleach, and apply a fresh coat of paint if the door requires it. Make sure you brush up on the proper technique for painting a garage door so you know what you’re doing beforehand.

 Insulation

The garage can often be the most uncomfortable room in the house for many people, with sweltering temperatures in summer and freezing ones in winter. By adding insulation, you can properly regulate the temperature of your garage to make it more comfortable. Insulation also helps cut down on noise generated from the garage while you’re in there and keeps noxious fumes (from any products you might have stored) out of your home.

Weatherstripping

Replacing and checking weatherstripping is a task that you should carry out at least once in any given year. It’s important to make sure there are no holes or cracks in the weatherstripping as it helps keep the cold and adverse elements out while keeping the garage cleaner.

 

Hipwoods Garage Doors have been installing garage doors in the Gloucester area since 2014.  We work on the premise that if we wouldn’t want it in our house, we won’t fit it in someone else’s!  To see a complete product range that we install for our clients, take a look at our website www.hipwoodsgaragedoors.com – you’ll get a real feel for the passion we have for our work and helpful tips and hints on how to maintain your garage doors, or if you’re looking for some advice on garage doors, give us a call on 01452 539 455 – we’d be happy to help!