A one piece garage door is held into place by the two hinges one on the left side and one on the right they are very big and they have extension springs attached to them to counterbalance the garage door. These hinges are screwed into place by at least three screws on each side now when I say screws the screws are usually 6 to 8 inches long they are very big because they need to go deep into the wood and hold an extreme amount of weight. It is not often that they come loose or come out of the doorjamb but it does happen and it can be a very dangerous situation. If this problem happens to your garage door then you should not even touch it open or close the door you will need to call a garage door technician immediately to fix this problem do not attempt to try and screw the lag bolts back into the door jamb yourself most of the time because of the fact that this screw has already come loose so that usually means that the hole it is screwed into is stripped out and the screw can no longer hold itself in place. In order to fix this problem a garage door technician will have to re-level the door and move the hinges up about an inch or so to be able to screw into fresh new wood. This usually has to be done by two guys and it is not something that garage door technicians like to do because it can be very dangerous. If this situation does happen to you then when the garage door technicians come to fix your garage door make sure they put a safety kicker which is usually just a piece of punched angle that is screwed to the hinge and then screwed to the door jamb so that if any of those screws should ever come loose the hinge will not come away from the wall what this will do is make it easier to repair and keep the hinges from making it so you can not open or close your door in an emergency. And don’t be alarmed if the garage door technician tells you that you might have to replace the door jambs on either side of the garage door sometimes because of water rot and or just wood deterioration has gotten so bad that the screws cannot stay in place safely.
do not open the door…
If you’re one piece garage door is made of wood then they are usually very heavy and if a screw or hinge comes away from the wall there is always the risk of the door falling down onto the garage floor or your automobile. I once had a customer when who had this situation and his car was in the garage and when I saw what had happened I told him to stay away from the door do not open the door and I would have to go and get another technician to help me fix this problem and it would not be until the next morning so the next morning I came with another technician to fix the door and I guess he did not listen and he tried to open the garage door and it fell on top of his $60,000 Land Rover. When screws come out of the door jam on one piece doors it does not matter if it is open or closed at the time because when it is closed that means the springs are fully loaded and can be extremely dangerous to deal with. on the other hand if the door is open when this problem arises then it is equally as dangerous because when the door is open they are like I said extremely heavy if they are made of wood and the potential for the door to fall on the garage floor is great. Anytime a garage door technician tells you not to do something when it comes to your garage door you should really listen to them because it is for a reason garage doors can be extremely dangerous when they are not stable. If you have a one piece garage door you can go and inspect the hinges on each side of the door and if you do not have some kind of the safety bar or piece of angle that is screwed to the hinge and then screwed to the wall to keep it coming away from the wall then you might want to call a garage door company and have them install the safety features for you just in case. It’s not much of a price to pay for peace of mind.