Garage Door Repair

Questions and Answers

What is the best way to repair a wooden garage door that is rotted a little on the bottom panel?

Posted by Rak

Admin: A garage door can comprise up to 30% of a home’s view from the street and a garage door upgrade is a simple, often economical, way to increase curb appeal. Purchasing wooden garage door panels from different manufacturers at cheaper price Wooden garage doors mix the function and form. These are made up of oak, cedar. So these doors are solid and are built to last long. These are little expensive and most of the people prefer them.

 

How can I repair a section of the floor of my garage? I don’t need the full 8′ length of the garage door seal.?
There is a section of the floor of my garage where the door comes down that is uneven. It looks like the cement cracked and sloped down. It has been this way for many, many years, but this year I started getting cats and squirrels going under this section. The floor slopes from about 1/2″ being the smallest slope to about 3″ deep for the deepest slope; The width is about 42″.

I thought about buying the garage door seal but I only need width of 42″. Can garage door seal be cut and what is the height – since my deepest slope is 3″? How would I adjust from 1/2″ to 3″ depth for 42″ width.

Posted by Ricky

Admin: A little more detail would be helpful. Is the garage separate or detached from the home? I’m guessing detached. I ask because, my next question is, Is there a concrete driveway coming up to the garage? I guess there isn’t. If this is indeed the case, an easy temporary fix would be to be a few bags of asphalt patch at a Home Depot or Lowe’s. Fill the void with that and use a tamper to compact it. This will take care of the animals coming in for the time being. This will also allow you to monitor the problem further to see if it settles more.

The problem is the ground under that section has settled and the concrete dropped. This leads me to believe the garage may have been added some time after the home was built. It was built by someone that didn’t do it correctly. The perimeter of the slab should be on a continuous footing specifically so this doesn’t happen. You might want to try digging outside the garage at the problem area to see how thick the concrete is. My guess it will be about 4″. If you live in a cold area, when the ground freezes, it causes the slab to heave (or raise). When it did that, it cracked the concrete and rain water from over time get into the crack and caused the ground to settle. That’s another problem as well. The ground should have been compacted prior to pouring the slab, if it didn’t have a specific structural design..

For a permanent fix, you’ll need to remove part of the slab (across the door opening, and approx 12″ back. Next remove the soil underneath it until you’ve reached whatever the frost footing depth is where ever you live. Pour that solid with concrete from top to bottom. Before pouring concrete, you should drill into the existing concrete and dowel in 3/8″ metal bars (every 24″) so the slab will maintain the same height. The other thing to do is use expansion joint where the new concrete will abut the old. If you do not do this, the new concrete will crack. This is the correct fix for the problem. I suggested the asphalt only because it is an immediate fix in an hour. For more help about garage door repair click here.