maintenance

  • Doggie Day Care

    The summer may be coming to a close, but that doesn’t mean that the heat is going anywhere! All of us here at A Plus Garage Doors are huge animal fans, but we often can’t bring our pets with us when we leave the home. Most stores won’t allow pets of course, and with the temperature outside, leaving them in the car isn’t an option. Although there may be no easy solution to this problem in the Charlotte area, Dr. Mary Traverse from Austin, Texas, has found a way to let pet owners take their dogs with them on errands, without placing them at risk.

  • DIY: Adding Weatherstripping to Your Garage Door

    If you read our previous blog post about R-Value, you probably know that insulating your garage is an important step in keeping your utility bills down and making your garage a pleasant room to be in during the heat of summer or the cold of winter. But if you’re not interested in upgrading to a better insulated garage door, your next best bet might be adding weatherstripping (also called astragal) around your door. We’ll walk you through this simple DIY procedure for sealing the top, sides, and bottom of your door, all of which can be done on a tiny budget.

  • How to: Manually Operate Your Garage Door

    With the recent storms in and around Charlotte, as well as the tropical storm headed for Florida, it is reasonable for our readers to be concerned about their house’s power. If your home loses power, your garage door opener will also run out of juice, and you might be unable to get your cars out of your garage! If your door is properly maintained, you should be able to open it manually, and we’ll explain how to do so in this article.

  • Has Lightning Damaged your Garage Door Opener?

    Have the recent summer storms around Charlotte been raining on your parade? Not only have we been experiencing severe storms and torrential rainfall, but of course these storms are accompanied by thunder and lightning. Lightning in particular can be dangerous, to people and possessions. Many families know to unplug their valuable electronics from the wall outlets or to use surge protectors, in order to protect these appliances and computers, but your garage door opener is also at risk. If you’ve been experiencing strange problems from your opener, a lightning strike may be the cause. We’re experts in garage door repair and we’ve collected a list of ways to identify if your garage door opener may have been damaged by a power surge, so read on to see if this applies to you!

  • How to Upgrade your Garage Door: Painting it!

    Is your garage door a white rectangle? Most doors are, and although there’s nothing wrong with a simple solution, some homes simply don’t look as good with a white door. Maybe your home’s exterior is better suited for a wooden door, or a door colored in a less traditional tone. Some homes can match the styling of their door’s glass windows to the styling of their entry door or nearby exterior windows. Some homeowners choose to make their door pop by painting it red, blue, green, or painting it with a bold pattern. Even just changing the hardware on your door’s exterior to emulate a carriage house door. Basically, if you’ve got an older door or a plain door, you might be missing out on one of the best ways to express your personality on the outside of your house!

  • 25 Ways to Childproof your Garage

    You might think of your garage as a messy storage room, but anyone who has ever had a child knows that kids see something very different. To a child, a garage is an enchanting land of forbidden toys, tasty liquids and fun machinery. Keeping kids out of the garage is the best way to protect them from it, but once your child gets to the age that they can open doors, you can’t be expected to watch them 24/7. We’ve collected 25 tips to child-proof your garage. Spending a couple hours making your garage a safer place for your son or daughter to play is well worth the time when you consider the risk of a child getting hurt, and most of these tips can be done on a small budget or no budget at all.

  • Dinosaur Door

    The garage door is typically thought of as one of the noisiest parts of your home, but that doesn’t have to be the case. Although many garage doors are poorly maintained and therefore end up being rather loud, if noise is a concern then there are a number of simple steps you can take to reduce the amount of noise that operating your door makes. Some of these steps might place you at risk, so we recommend only having an expert perform this maintenance, but some of the simpler steps can be safely performed by homeowners. If your garage door sounds like a dinosaur, like in the video attached, frankly that is awesome and we don’t suggest changing it. But if your door is a boring sort of loud, these simple steps can help reduce the noise and keep you sane.

  • Your Garage’s Curb Appeal

    Whenever you consider making a large change to your home, it is a good idea to keep resale value in mind. Unless you plan on owning your home for the rest of your life, you will need to put it back on the market at some point. If you make undesirable changes to your home in order to make it more appropriate for your living situation, you might find yourself regretting the choice when your house languishes, unsold, for months. Many homeowners wonder if converting their garage to a living space would give them a leg up against the competition, and others don’t know if they can expect to recoup the cost of a new garage door when they sell. We’ve done the research and can pass our findings on to you, so that you can be an informed consumer.

  • 13 Garage Doors Myths, Debunked

    People say things that aren’t true all of the time. Sometimes, they don’t know better. Sometimes, they’re trying to sell you things that you don’t really need. This sort of misinformation has led to a bunch of rumors and myths about garage doors that aren’t true. Today, we’ll dispel 13 of the most common myths so that you can have the right answers to these important questions. Feel free to check these for yourself if you don’t believe us, but we’d much rather educate a customer than charge someone for services or upgrades they don’t need.