Don't Be Fooled Into Trying This Viral Fix For A Squeaky Garage Door

A squeaky garage door, or one that rattles and grates every time you open or close it, soon gets frustrating. If you're trying to sell your house, it's also one way your garage door might be hurting your home's resale value. Regular lubrication will often help prevent problems like this, but even a door that's well cared for will begin to wear eventually.

Misalignment might be the cause, and if that's the case, there's a DIY method to get your garage door back on track that you might want to try. The other main culprit when it comes to a squeaky garage door is worn rollers. If the rollers are plastic, they should be replaced every couple of years. If they are metal, they're noisier to begin with, but it could be that the bearings have seized and the rollers are scraping along the tracks instead of rotating. In most cases, nylon replacements are recommended. They are not only quiet, but they also offer excellent durability.

Over on YouTube, a content creator who goes by Silver Cymbal has posted a video telling us that replacing rollers is both cheap and easy. However, while it's true that the replacement parts are not expensive, don't be fooled into thinking this viral fix is as simple as he's suggesting. It's possible you have the necessary skills, but you might prefer to call in the pros.

Most garage doors have ten or twelve rollers, and Silver Cymbal says a replacement of any size should be fine. This is incorrect. They do vary, so measuring your existing garage door rollers and replacing them with the correct size is important.

After disconnecting the power (a very sensible precaution), the presenter moves on to loosening the brackets that hold the rollers. It's not a complicated process, and a beginner DIYer should be fine with this step. However, the video doesn't mention that it's vital to replace one roller at a time so as not to unbalance the door. 

The big challenge comes with the bottom brackets. These often have the cable attached and are under a lot of tension. This can make them dangerous to work with. The content creator opens the garage door to reduce this tension, but it's obvious from the video that it's still awkward. It's best that the door be closed and springs removed. The presenter himself suggests skipping the bottom brackets, claiming that replacing the rest of the rollers will have reduced the noise sufficiently. While that's possible, leaving the job unfinished hardly seems like an ideal solution, and certainly not the "easy fix" that was promised.

Silver Cymbal is one of several YouTubers suggesting similar fixes for a squeaky garage door. Unfortunately, while the theory might be sound, it's often not as straightforward in practice. The danger is that those who attempt it themselves will find changing the first few brackets easy but, like the presenter, will struggle to finish the task properly.

Part of the problem is the variety of garage doors on the market, so the instructions for this procedure could vary considerably. For example, in some cases, it might be necessary to bend the tracks to get the old rollers out. In other cases, special tools may be necessary to perform the replacement. Injuries are possible during this procedure, and incorrect roller replacement could damage other parts of the garage door.

It's certainly not impossible to make your garage door quiet by changing the rollers, but it's not as easy as is made out by some viral videos. Those with a mechanical or engineering background should be able to accomplish the task, but others might be better advised to get a couple of quotes from local specialists. It's certainly safer, and when you consider the potential pitfalls, it might also be cheaper.