OPEN 24 HRS
San Diego Garage Door Repair & Gate Experts
Tip Top's Tip-Top Residential Garage Door Service.
Garage doors add style, functionality, and all-important security to your home. But underneath all the positives lies the danger. Without regular inspection, maintenance, and timely repairs, the plethora of moving components can be perilous.
With that in mind, it's essential to have a trusted garage door repair company to rely on.
Our team has over 50 years of experience fixing and installing garage doors of all kinds. We keep you firmly in the forefront of our minds, ensuring we ooze excellent craftsmanship, honesty, and transparency to give you the service you deserve.
Broken Springs
Your garage door spring is one of the most integral parts of your door. Without a maintained spring, you risk getting trapped inside (or outside) your garage — and you can guarantee it'll occur at a highly inopportune time!
So, you need a garage door spring repair and tune-up company to rely on when things go wrong. That's where TipTop comes in! Our passionate crew is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to provide affordable emergency replacements, repairs, or regular maintenance to your spring.
Your search for an honest, hard-working garage door and gate company that always puts you first is over.
A broken spring is one of the more common (and few) things that will cause a garage door not to open. At Tiptop Door Service, we can often diagnose a broken spring before it snaps, leaving you trapped.
If your garage door is not opening, or you are concerned you may have a broken or worn out spring, contact us today!
Broken Tracks, Rollers, and Cables
Garage doors are able to be lifted because of two systems. The counterbalance system supports the door when vertical, and the tracking system supports the door when in the open or horizontal position. The cables attach the bottom of the door to the torsion tube which provides the lifting force making the door ideally weightless so you or a garage door opener can easily lift the door.
While opening the weight of the door transfers onto the rollers when transitioning into the horizontal tracks. Rollers have either bearings or more commonly newer doors have rollers that have simple nylon bushings. These although slightly less functional, have almost no moving parts to wear out. But they are widely in use as they are significantly less expensive than true bearing rollers, and if neglected can last for years. Bearing rollers work tremendously better, but absolutely require lubrication annually or the bearings will seize.
Cables are normally 1/8’ thick and are typically what are referred to as 7x7 wound cables. This means that there 7 strands of wire per bundle, with 7 bundles wound into a wire rope. These are incredibly strong, and resilient, but need to be inspected for wear to catch them when they start to fray.
Garage Door Parts
Modern garage doors are made up of many parts that work together to provide reliable performance and security. From the panels, tracks, hinges, bottom fixtures, top fixtures, flag brackets and jamb brackets to cables, drums, end bearing plates and torsion tubes - each component plays an important role in keeping your door functioning properly. Regular inspection of these parts is essential for safety reasons as well as for preventing wear and tear.
In addition to regular inspection it’s equally important that you lubricate all moving parts at least once every year. Lubrication helps reduce noise levels and also keeps all parts running smoothly. This is especially important for components like the cables, drums, end bearing plates, center brackets, torsion tubes and loose bearings which are constantly in motion when you open/close the door. Taking these simple steps can help keep your garage door system running reliably for years to come and save you from needing costly repairs in the future.
It is recommended that you contact a professional service provider who can perform these tasks for you safely, efficiently and with the right tools. They can also advise you on any potential issues that may arise and suggest ways of preventing them before they become bigger problems. Regular inspection and maintenance are essential for keeping your garage door system running reliably, safely and smoothly so take the time to inspect and maintain your garage door regularly for optimal performance and safety.
Panel Replacement
Sometimes garage doors malfunction causing the panels to become damaged, and sometimes WE malfunction causing panel damage ourselves. In either case, we can usually source new garage door panels as most manufacturers are still available. Doors can also sometimes be dented by others, especially in close parking situations such as townhomes, or condos. Or by delivery persons, or service workers. If a door becomes dented or creased, this can and will spread through all the sections if not remediated.
Most garage doors are manufactured with a roll form process that ensures they are strong enough to support their own weight even though the dynamic load when shifting into the open position, but not much extra. When a door becomes dented, or creased, the act of opening into the horizontal position very slightly flexes the door section and flexes back when closing. This back-and-forth motion further weakens the section causing it to spread right up, or down through the entire door. Envision bending a soup can lid back and forth until it snaps off. If cosmetic repairs aren’t a large consideration the panels can most of the time, be reinforced to prevent the dents from spreading if caught early. And really stops the damage in its tracks. But it must be done early. Of course as mentioned this does not correct the cosmetic damage, in which case the offending panel or panels would need to be replaced. Reinforcement costs a fraction of the cost of replacement panels. We at Tiptop are simply here to tell you about your options and perform the services you desire. Just know that whatever advice we give is strictly honest. We are not here to fix your garage door once and scoot, we are here to be your door, and gate service provider for life.
Safety Sensor Alignment
Back in 1994, in response to the safety concerns related to crushing deaths from garage doors, many states, and the Federal Government passed legislation, including UL325- requiring a noncontact safety device to be inherently installed on any garage door opener installed in the US, and more specifically, in California- Health and Safety Code Chapter 12.5. Prior to this, crushing deaths- while rare, were occurring with gruesome regularity. Since the passing of this requirement, there have been zero crushing deaths when equipped and installed properly. By all standards, one could say, the laws were a complete success!
However, since then safety sensors have become the bane of the garage door industry. They consistently get knocked out of alignment, become obstructed, get dirty, and just go bad. Of course, this always happens when you have absolutely no time to mess around with it. So we are doomed to leave our homes open and accessible all day right? Not so.
You see, when a wired wall control is equipped, these are designed to be able to override the sensors when malfunctioning. Simply hold the wall control firmly down until completely closed. Than when you return home the door should open normally as these sensors only prevent the door from closing as that is when they are the most dangerous. To align the sensors simply make sure that the lenses are pointing directly at each other. Make sure they are clean, and look for broken wires ( don’t worry, they are low voltage), and damage. If you just don’t have time to mess with it, give us a call. We are here for you, day or night- without the added fees!
