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Getting the garage door storm-ready

Australia's severe-weather season officially runs from the start of November to the end of April, and it peaks after New Year. The garage door is the biggest moving opening in the house, and the calm months before the season are the right time to look at it, not the week the radar turns purple.

Why now, and not in November

The Bureau of Meteorology puts the tropical cyclone season at 1 November to 30 April, with the worst of it usually between January and March, and severe thunderstorms follow much the same rhythm across the country. Lake Macquarie's version arrives as summer southerlies and storm cells rather than named cyclones, but the logic is the same: a door problem found in August is a booking; the same problem found the day a storm is due is a queue.

None of what follows will storm-proof a house, and nobody honest will promise you that. What a winter once-over buys is simpler: a door that is working properly before the weather asks anything extra of it.

The biggest moving opening in the house

When wind hits a house, the garage door carries it across the widest opening in the building, which is why garage doors in Australia sit under their own design standard. AS/NZS 4505:2012 covers the design, construction and installation of domestic garage doors, including how wind loads are transferred into the structure around them. You don't need to read it, and we're not going to pretend anyone does for fun. What's worth keeping is the question it gives you: whenever a new door is being quoted, by anyone, "what's this door's wind rating?" is a fair and normal thing to ask.

The maintenance you can do yourself

None of this needs tools, and all of it is worth ten minutes on a dry weekend.

• Walk the door with your eyes. Look over the panels, the tracks either side, and the cables at the edges, without touching. Dents, rust along the bottom, a track that isn't straight, or a cable that looks frayed are all things to report, not repair.
• Do the half-open test. Disconnect the opener with the red release cord, lift the door halfway by hand, and let go. A healthy door stays put. Our guide to why a door goes heavy explains what the other results mean.
• Test the safety reverse. Openers sold here are covered by their own electrical-safety standard, AS/NZS 60335.2.95, and the protections it describes are ones you can check: with the door closing, break the beam of the safety sensors near the floor. The door should stop and reverse. If it doesn't, stop using the opener and have it looked at.
• Check the seals. With the door closed, look for daylight along the bottom and sides. A tired bottom seal is a small job, and it is the difference between a damp patch and a wet garage when the rain comes in sideways.
• Find the red cord before you need it. If the power goes out mid-storm, the manual release is how you get the car out. Better to know where it is on a calm afternoon than to hunt for it by torchlight.

One more small thing, since remotes live on key rings and visors: many garage remotes run on button batteries, which the ACCC lists among the household items that are a serious swallowing hazard for young children. Keep spares and dead ones out of reach, and get rid of dead ones properly.

What to leave to the trade

The springs, the cables, and the brackets they anchor to are under load whenever the door is down, and they are the one part of this checklist where looking is the whole job. If the door failed any check above, or anything looks bent, frayed or rusted through, book it in rather than adjusting it. That's not upsell, it's the same advice we give at every door.

A pre-season tune, plainly

A service visit before the season is the whole-system version of the checklist: spring balance, cables and drums, rollers, track alignment, seals, and the opener's settings, checked and adjusted in one visit, with anything bigger explained in plain words and priced firmly before we touch it.