Why Water gets through the bottom of my garage door every time its raining?

All garage doors of any kind will come with a bottom rubber seal of some kind. This is known in the garage door business as the astragal. On a wood garage door the bottom rubber seal is nailed to the bottom section into the wood of the door. Or on a steel garage door the bottom rubber seal will slide into a groove that is on a clip that runs along the bottom section of the garage door. These types of bottom rubber seals come in two different ways a single channel and a double channel. The single channel were seal as a bead on it like a tire and that will slide into a channel on the bottom clip that runs along the whole length of the bottom garage door panel. A double channel clip is a little bit different. It’s might be a little hard to understand but I will try to make it easy. And if you take a look at the bottom rubber on your garage door and it has one of these types of clips then you’ll understand a little easier what I am talking about.

double channel retainer clip

The double channel retainer clip has two grooves one on the inside and one on the outside of the clip and they run the length of the garage door. The rubber seal that is used in this application is flat and it has edges on it that look like a T and fold it up into the shape of a U and you slide the two at ends into the grooves and then pull it all the way across the bottom panel until you get to the other side. If you plan on replacing one of these types of rubber seals then you will need to get a spray bottle with soapy water to spray along the whole clip so that it acts as a lubricant when you are sliding the rubber through the Retainer clip. Try not to use any spray lube like WD 40. This will make the rubber seal very greasy and oily and tends to collect a lot of dirt being on the ground most of the time. The soapy water will just evaporate and not  be sticky on when you are done. If you have a wood garage door and obviously you will need to put the door in the up position pull off any old rubber seal remove any old nails and nail a new seal to the bottom of your garage door. You will want to use the same kind of nails that you pull out the old rubber seal. They are like roofing nails they have a really big flat head on them.

garage door is leaking water?

If your garage door is leaking water when it rains you first have to see if it is a drainage problem at the base of your garage door. If the water is just collecting at the bottom of the garage door outside in your driveway then it is really hard for the rubber seal at the bottom of your garage door to keep all of that water out it is not meant to seal in that way. Over time the bottom rubber seal will tend to shrink and it looks like there is a couple of inches missing on either side of the bottom rubber leaving a gap in the corners of your garage door this is very common. The elements will make the rubber seal do this. The rubber seal for a garage door was basically just meant to keep out critters and debris blowing around outside out of your garage. If too much debris and water is coming underneath your garage door other issue may be the garage door opener does not have enough adjustment on the bottom limit to seal the door against the ground. The easiest way to see this problem is to look for daylight underneath the garage door when it is closed. This can be fixed with an easy adjustment to your garage door opener close limits. If you do not have a garage door opener and you close your door and it tends to jump back up a couple of inches then the springs are too hot and needs a little tension taken off them so that the weight of the door can sit on the rubber and seal it to the garage floor. Remember that water is very powerful and is very hard to keep out of anyplace.