Overhead garage door repair
Wood overhead garage door sticking or swollen?
Wood takes up moisture and swells, so the door gets tighter and heavier. Often it is a seal or paint problem, but the added weight also throws off the spring balance. Do not force it or adjust springs.
Is this what you're seeing?
Your wood overhead door rubs the jamb or sticks on one side.
The door got heavy and the opener strains or reverses.
The bottom edge is swollen, soft, or the paint is peeling.
The sections have a visible bow, or the joints have opened.
It acts up after rain or a wet snow and loosens in a dry spell.
What's going on
Wood is a living material. It takes up moisture from the air, rain and snow, and swells across the grain. A door made from solid or plywood sections can grow in width and thickness enough to rub the stop molding or pinch in the track. Our dry air shrinks wood in winter and a wet spring or snowmelt swells it again, so a wood door cycles every year.
The spots to look at are the bottom edge and the end grain. Water gets into the bottom rail where paint has worn through and a bottom seal has failed, and a wicking edge will swell more than the rest of the door. Faded paint and open joints let in moisture on the top and sides. A wood door that stays wet can also begin to rot at the joints, or the glue lines can fail so sections delaminate.
Swelling adds weight, and the extra weight matters. A garage door spring is set to balance the door as it was built. A wood door that has soaked up water, or has been repainted many times, can be much heavier than it was. The opener is then lifting what the spring no longer balances, and a door that feels heavy can wear out the opener quickly. It is a safe rule that the spring and the cable are not a DIY adjustment, wood door or not.
What to do right now
Do
Check where the door rubs: jamb, header or track side.
Look at the bottom of each section for soft or dark wood.
Note whether the door gets better when it dries out.
Test the opener with the door released only if the door is fully closed, and see if it lifts easily by hand.
Don't
Do not plane or sand the door while the wood is wet and swollen. It will be too small when it dries.
Do not adjust the spring tension to compensate for weight.
Do not turn up the opener force to push a binding door.
Do not caulk the door to the jamb.
How we fix it
This is overhead garage door repair. We find where the door is binding, trim a tight spot only when the wood is dry enough, seal and paint the bare edges, repair or swap damaged sections, and rebalance the springs for the door you have now.
Repair or replace?
A sticking wood door is often just a repair: dry the wood, seal it, adjust the stops and rebalance. When sections are rotted, delaminated or split, panel replacement is possible if matching wood sections can be made.
If the whole door is soft and heavy, a new door in steel, composite or wood-look insulated steel may be the better choice than patching.
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