by Deena Zimmerman
Garage door panels sometimes need to be replaced like when you accidentally backed into them with your car and it's gotten some scratches or even dents. Some people just leave it alone but most do want to fix the problem by replacing them. Below is a basic guideline on replacing the panels in your garage door.
The first thing you can do is to contact your garage door manufacturer. He can help you replace your old and worn out or significantly damaged garage door panels in a flash. Yes, it's that easy. Although, if you have no idea who your manufacturer was, then contact the local contractor who built your house to help you. When you're successful, the manufacturer will then try to sell you on buying a new garage door. It's reasonable enough since the color of the other panels might easily be faded already, but if you do decide to get just the panels, make sure it fits appropriately with the door type. As with everything concerning your house and garage, it's up to you. You're the only one who can decide if you want replacement panels or a totally new garage door.
At length, by mid-afternoon, after we had had two or three rainbows over the sea, the showers ceased, and the heavens gradually cleared up, though the wind still blowed as hard and the breakers ran as high as before. Keeping on, we soon after came to a charity-house, which we looked into to see how the shipwrecked mariners might fare. Far away in some desolate hollow by the seaside, just within the bank, stands a lonely building on piles driven into the sand, with a slight nail put through the staple, which a freezing man can bend, with some straw, perchance, on the floor on which he may lie, or which he may burn in the fireplace to keep him alive. Perhaps this hut has never been required to shelter a shipwrecked man, and the benevolent person who promised to inspect it annually, to see that the straw and matches are here, and that the boards will keep off the wind, has grown remiss and thinks that storms and shipwrecks are over; and this very night a perishing crew may pry open its door with their numbed fingers and leave half their number dead here by morning. When I thought what must be the condition of the families which alone would ever occupy or had occupied them, what must have been the tragedy of the winter evenings spent by human beings around their hearths, these houses, though they were meant for human dwellings, did not look cheerful to me. They appeared but a stage to the grave. The gulls flew around and screamed over them; the roar of the ocean in storms, and the lapse of its waves in calms, alone resounds through them, all dark and empty within, year in, year out, except, perchance, on one memorable night. Houses of entertainment for shipwrecked men! What kind of sailor’s homes were they?
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
If you've decided to buy new panels instead of getting a new garage door, it's now time to install them. They're basically done by slipping each of the panels into the garage door rail. They are then bolted to the garage rail and connected to a succeeding panel with a hinge on its sides. Sometimes, they're spring side-bolt quick-attached to the rail. Aside from new panels, you're going to need a ratchet with sockets to fit bolts onto your garage door. Although, some custom garages would need other equipment, but since you were the one who did it, then it won't be a problem.
To remove your old panels, unplug your garage door opener first to avoid any problems; open your garage first, though. Once it's open all the way, unclip the springs on each side of the door to remove them. After this, you'll have to close your garage door manually. Be careful because garage doors are basically very heavy without the attached springs. Use extreme caution with some garage door designs especially when they're the ultra heavy ones with metal plates or something as this could cause you an injury too. Some garage door wood types are also heavy, so be careful.
When the door is closed, unbolt the hinges that hold the door panel to the other panels. Do the same with the track rollers on the panel you're replacing. Try to lift the panels above the one you're replacing with relative care so as to remove the old panel. Unscrew and remove all the other panels you want to replace until all the damaged panels are taken out of the garage door rail.
A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of.
—Ogden Nash (1902–1971)
When you're done taking out the old and damaged panels, start to slide the new garage door panel into the garage door track. Once it's in place, bolt the bottom hinges and track rollers into it on the garage door rail. Make sure that you reconnect the two hinges between each of the panels too. Lower other panels into their places and reattach with the same process.
So you're done replacing your garage door panels. But of course, you need to lift the door back up again so you can reattach the extension springs (or the torsion springs, if you have those). After that, you're done.