Sectional garage door repair, motors and installation

The door is a stack of horizontal panels, hinged to each other, with rollers on their edges running in a track on each side. The tracks run straight up the sides of the opening, curve, and carry on back under the ceiling, so when the door opens the panels follow the curve and end up lying flat overhead.

The weight is carried by springs, usually torsion springs on a shaft above the opening. Steel cables run from drums on that shaft down to the bottom corners of the door, so as the springs turn the shaft, the drums wind the cables on and lift the door. A well-set door is light to move by hand and stays where you leave it, which is what a motor needs: Centurion's SDO4 manual sets the limit at no more than 10 kg of force to open or close by hand, and no more than 100 mm of drift when the door is let go halfway.

Because the panels stay inside the garage as they open, a sectional door needs nothing in front of it on the driveway, which is one of its main advantages.

Roll-up doors are covered on roll-up garage doors. Tip-up doors use many of the same ceiling-mounted motors as sectional doors, set up differently: Centurion's SDO4 runs a tip-up door at 80 mm a second against 140 on a sectional door.

Hydro Doors, the maker of Digidoor, publishes the building requirements for a standard door:

To quote a new door, a supplier needs the opening's width and height, the headroom, nib and ceiling space, whether there's power for a motor, and whether you want it locked from inside or outside. Hydro Doors adds a safety point worth knowing: if the garage has no other door, a motorised garage door needs an escape lock, and an unmotorised one an outside centre lock. Then come the design, such as horizontal slats or raised panels, and the colour, which Hydro Doors suggests matching to the window frames.

Most sectional door faults come back to the parts that carry and guide its weight:

• Springs. A broken or tired torsion spring leaves the door heavy or crooked. Never adjust or release one yourself: see garage door spring broken and garage door springs.
• Cables and drums. A cable off its drum or snapped leaves the door hanging on one side: see garage door cable came off drum.
• Rollers, hinges and tracks. Worn rollers, cracked hinges and bent tracks make the door jerk, bind or jump at the curve. Centurion's checks for a door ready for a motor are a good list: horizontal tracks level, panels level, vertical tracks plumb, and no jump where the curve meets the straight. More on garage door cables, rollers and tracks.
• Damaged panels. A dented or cracked panel can sometimes be replaced on its own, if a matching panel is still available.
• Balance. A door that drops or creeps up when let go halfway needs its springs adjusted before anything else. A motor on an unbalanced door strains, stops and reverses.

ET's installation manual makes one more point that shows what's at stake: every part a motor is mounted on has to be strong enough to hold the door's full weight if a balancing spring snaps.

• Centurion SDO4. A ceiling-mounted motor for sectional and tip-up doors up to 6.5 m wide, and 12 m² or 15 m² in area depending on the model, with battery backup. The SDO4 SMART is set up in Centurion's app. See the Centurion SDO4 manual.
• ET DC Blue Advanced and ET's current sectional operator. For sectional and trackless tip-up doors under 15 m², on a 3,370 mm rail for a standard sectional door or 3,870 mm for a caravan-height door, with up to 35 remotes. See the ET DC Blue Advanced manual.
• Digidoor Digi One and Digi 6. Overhead door openers running along a chain rail on the ceiling, set up from a small display. See the Digidoor manuals.

Whatever the motor, it's only as good as the door: we check the balance, springs and tracks before fitting one, and put them right first if they need it.

• Wash it. Hydro Doors asks for steel and aluminium doors to be washed every three months inland, and monthly at the coast: wet it with a hose, wash gently with warm water and a car soap-and-wax mix on a microfibre cloth, rinse and let it dry. No pressure washer, no abrasive cloths, and no window cleaner, bleach or solvents, which damage the coating.
• Keep the springs greased. Centurion's SDO4 manual asks for heavy bearing grease between the coils of the springs; dry springs rust and add friction the motor feels.
• Check the balance now and then: lift the door halfway by hand with the motor released, as its manual shows, and let go. It should stay put.
• Have it serviced. What a service covers is on how to service a garage door motor.

We repair sectional doors and their springs, cables, rollers and tracks, and fit and service the motors that drive them, new doors included once they're in, across our areas, from Sandton and Randburg to the East Rand. Send a photo of the door and the motor with the job card. All our spare parts are genuine, and every repair carries our six-month guarantee on our repairs. Your exact price is set in a free quote before any work starts. No call-out fee when we do the work. If no work is done, a R650 call-out fee applies.