Get your garage door ready for a Northern Colorado summer. Heat, hail, dust, and wind all wear doors out fast — here's a local pro's May checklist.
May is the sweet spot for garage door maintenance in Northern Colorado. Cool enough to work, early enough to catch problems before hail season and 95°F afternoons.
If you live anywhere from Fort Collins to Greeley to Loveland, you already know what summer looks like up here — afternoon hailstorms, 30 mph wind gusts off the foothills, dust blowing in from the plains, and garage interiors that hit 110°F by 4 p.m. All of that is rough on a garage door, and May is the best month to get ahead of it.
Start with the springs. Torsion and extension springs both lose tension faster when temperatures swing 40+ degrees in a single day, which is basically every May in Windsor, Wellington, and Severance. If your door feels heavy when you lift it manually (opener disconnected), or if one side rises faster than the other, you're heading for a broken spring in July. Replacing a tired spring on your schedule is roughly half the stress of replacing it at 9 p.m. on a Friday.
Next, look at the panels and weather seal. Hail damage is the #1 insurance claim we help Northern Colorado homeowners file every summer. Walk around your door in good light — dings, dents, cracked paint, or a bottom seal that's split, brittle, or chewed up by the snow shovel all need attention. A new bottom seal is one of the cheapest upgrades you can make and it keeps dust, mice, and 100°F air out of your garage.