Your garage door is more than inconvenient when it breaks. This is why it is so important that you maintain it properly. When your garage door is properly maintained, you will be less likely to be in need of repairs. One of the main parts of garage door maintenance includes lubricating all the working parts of your garage door. Quality Garage Door Repair is here to share some information on garage door lubricant and why it is so important that you choose the right one.

Lubricant is Key in Extending the Life of Your Garage Door

No one wants to experience frequent garage door repairs. One of the best ways to avoid it is to make sure all the working parts of your garage door are kept lubricated. This will ensure that those parts aren’t grinding together and wearing down sooner than they should. Here are the parts of your garage door that should be getting lubricated.
• Hinges– Some garage doors have plastic hinges, and you would obviously not need to be greasing them, but the metal hinges should be greased at the pivot point.
• Rollers– The bearings found in your rollers are what need to be lubricated. If you have nylon rollers, don’t get the grease on the nylon and just focus on the bearing. Wipe away any excess grease to save yourself from a mess.
• Springs– Spraying the torsion springs that lift and lower your garage door will keep them from breaking. Be sure you don’t over lubricate them and just give them enough that you notice they work with more ease.

What to Do After Garage Door Lubricant is Applied

Once you have lubricated all the working parts of your garage door, it is important that the garage door is lifted and lowered several times. This will help the lubricant be evenly distributed on each of those parts.

Silicone Spray or White Lithium Grease

You can’t just use any lubricant on your garage door without causing more damage. Many people try using WD-40 on their garage door which is a huge mistake. This tends to cause rusting rather than true lubrication. The best lubricant for garage doors is a silicone spray or white lithium grease. These greases work to truly lubricate all the moving parts of your garage door. After a proper lubrication, you will notice that your garage door doesn’t just work better, but it can cut out some of the grinding noise you hear previous to greasing the right parts.

Residential Garage Door Inspections, Maintenance, Repairs & More in Las Vegas, Summerlin, North LV & Henderson Nevada

Because maintaining your garage door is so important, you need to have it professionally inspected and maintained by a professional garage door company like Quality Garage Door Repair once a year. This will give you peace of mind that your garage door is in good hands and has the best chance at no major repairs. Our expert garage door technicians know exactly what parts need to be lubricated and will keep them working as they should. Call us today to schedule your annual maintenance inspection.

Gun grease from SPF Depot. Star Brite White Lithium Grease. Ideal for marine, auto and shop lubrication projects. Can lubricate plastic components. Helps prevent corrosion by providing a barrier to moisture and works in most standard grease guns. Steel Shield Weapon Shield Grease. Your main goals should be lubrication,rust prevention,waterproofing. Silicone in food safe and lithium grease is toxic. Silicone grease is mostly used in water lines or water filter systems.

Description

Wondering about the differences between lithium grease vs silicone grease? In this video, Harley compares silicone grease vs lithium grease, explains the differences, applications and uses of each.
What is dielectric grease and why should I use it? https://youtu.be/GXyRYArHryU
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For a written transcript, go to Lithium grease vs silicone grease: Which to use?
Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0 by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com.

Uses For Lithium Grease

Intro/Exit: Hot Swing

Transcript

Are you like Jeremy and wondering what the difference is between lithium grease and silicone grease?
We're talking about that right now in this video.
[Introduction]
Hi. Harley here.
I recently had a comment asking about the difference between dielectric grease and silicone grease and also how that compares to lithium grease.

Why Use White Lithium Grease

So let's talk about those differences today.
Lithium [grease] is:

• generally petroleum based,
• it adheres well to metal,
• it's non-corrosive,
• it's moisture resistant,
• it handles heavy loads really well,
• and it's resistant under high temperatures. It doesn't break down.

Silicone grease is:

• of course silicone based,
• it adheres to a wide variety of surfaces,
• it inhibits corrosion,
• resists moisture,
• and comes in various formulations.

A couple notable formulations are ingestible ones where it's safe to be used in dental tools and plumbing for potable water.
Another formulation is dielectric grease where it's used in applications where you have high current and you need something that has insulation properties.
Because lithium grease is petroleum based, it's not recommended for use around plastics and rubber where it'll cause these to prematurely fail.
These applications are better served by silicone grease.
Silicone grease, on the other hand, works better in low temperature, low stress applications around plastics and rubber.

White Lithium Grease Vs Silicone Grease

Common examples around the house for using lithium grease might be for garage door openers and hinges.
Whereas applications for silicone grease might be sliding doors and windows, seals around waterproof flashlights and plumbing fixtures.

Silicone Versus Lithium Grease

So I want to get back to Jeremy's question about using silicone grease for brake caliper applications. In this case, neither lithium nor silicone grease is really ideal.
Lithium because it's petroleum based will cause decay in the rubber parts of the brake system and silicone grease isn't really designed for that high temperature/high stress application.
There are actually specially formulated greases for brake applications that are designed to handle both the high temperature and high stress and also coming into contact with the plastics and rubbers in the brake system.

Silicone Spray Vs White Lithium Grease

Thanks Jeremy for the question and for everybody else for joining me on this creative journey we're on.

Silicone Vs White Lithium Grease

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