Have you ever thought about installing a garage door yourself without having to pay someone to do it? Well, now is your chance! Here’s a detailed DIY guide to do just that! With only six steps involved who needs to hire a guy to do it when you can do it for free?
- Remove that old door. Grab those manufacturer’s instructions and follow the steps on how to remove your door. Carefully unlatch the door from the pulley stem and take apart the panels of the door (one at a time) and unscrew the tracks. You want to remove them individually in case they fall on you!
- Measure and attach! Measure the areas where the door will be installed such as the door-opening height and width, headroom and the length of the garage. You need about 10”-12” of space depending on the system you will be installing. For the back room, you should have the door height, plus another 18” or more of space.
After you have measured all of the above temporarily attach the stops to both sides of the opening and make sure they are against the inside edge of the door jamb. Grab your sawhorses and lay out the bottom piece of the new door while attaching any weather stripping. Also, make sure you attach any hinges and lift handles to the piece!
- Put it into position. Make sure the bottom piece of the garage is inserted into the door frame and use a level to ensure that is properly set. Once that is done, tap nails partway into each of the jambs. Slightly bend the nails to make sure they are securely in place. Use that handy dandy manufacture’s instruction guide to assemble the curved, horizontal, and vertical pieces of the track. Set this aside.
- Install the rest of the panels. Make sure you install the second panel on top of the first one and hammer the nails into the side jambs to hold it into place. Install the hinges and repeat the process for however many panels you have. Don’t forget to also anchor each individual piece into the door jamb!
- Install the rollers. Once you ensure that all the sections are securely fastened, install the rollers in the section’s roller supports. When these are in place, put the rollers in the assembled track and secure the track’s brackets as you go. Don’t let the rollers press too tightly against the track because friction can cause damage to the door!
- Secure and attach! With the vertical tracks secured against the jambs you can now go ahead and install the curved and horizontal pieces. When installing the horizontal pieces, simply use your former measurements and level to make sure the tracks are straight and are pointing away from the opening at 90 degrees.
Assemble the springs after you secure the tracks. You can do this by opening up the manufacturer’s instruction guide again! Grab a friend and ask him to help you lift the door to about half length to make sure the tracks are level and parallel. Once they are, simply lift the door to the remaining distance and attach the springs to the pulley system!
Aren’t you glad you didn’t waste your precious hard earned money on an install man when you could do it yourself?! DIY’s sometimes aren’t the easiest, but they sure can save you quite a bit of dollars.
Have you ever installed a garage door by yourself? Was it worth the money you saved to do so?
Great tips guys, installed a few in my time, pretty straight forward once you get the hang of it. Plenty of how to videos on You Tube as well if you get stuck.
Cheers, James.
Btw- Having the right tools for the job goes a long way as well 🙂
Great job of laying out the steps for changing a garage door.
I have a light switch in my garage I didn’t think was connected to anything. I used to just turn the switch on and off. One day I received a letter from Poland. It said, “Knock it off.”
Very detailed step by step instructions. Never know when information like this is gonna come in handy. Thanks for sharing!