Repairs · Georgina
Garage Door Perimeter Weatherstrip
Every time the door closes there is a rubbing squeal along one side, and the flexible fin has folded under itself and torn.
In plain words
Around a garage door there are three seals: one on the bottom edge of the door, and two running up the sides and across the top of the opening. Those last two are the perimeter weatherstrip. They are fixed to the stop moulding on the jambs and header, and their flexible fin rests against the door face when it is closed, closing the gap between door and frame. Replacing them means fitting new lengths that meet the door evenly, cutting down how much wind, driven snow, dust, leaves and small animals get through. The bottom seal is handled as its own job, but the two are often done together.
How the visit goesDry leaves keep appearing in the same corner inside the garage, and this fall there were mouse droppings along the wall beside the door. When you look, the corner where the top and side strips meet is wide open.
Garage Door Perimeter Weatherstrip
How the visit goes
Probing the jambs and header
The strip is only as secure as the wood behind it, so the jambs are probed with an awl along their length and especially the lowest part, where slush and salt sit all winter. Soft, dark or crumbling wood is marked for repair. The header is checked for sag and for gaps opening between it and the top section. Where the jambs are clad in aluminum or vinyl, the technician looks for what the cladding hides and for where the seal can be fastened through to solid material. This step often adds a splice of new lumber or PVC trim to the job, and it is what makes the new seal stay put.
Making the jamb sound
Where probing found soft wood, it is dealt with before the seal. Rot at the base of the jamb is cut back to solid material and a matching piece of lumber or PVC trim is spliced in, fixed and primed. Minor soft spots are hardened with an epoxy consolidant and filled. Fasteners that will hold the new stop are then going into wood that grips them, which is what keeps the strip tight through years of the door pressing on it. Where the jamb is clad, the technician finds the solid framing behind the cladding and fastens through to it rather than into the thin skin.
Keep paint off the fin
When the trim is next painted, the flexible fin stays bare. Paint fills the flexible material and stiffens it, and a stiff fin cracks well before its time once the cold takes hold. If the rigid part of the stop is wood, it can be painted, but with the brush kept off the fin or the fin masked. One-piece vinyl stop needs no paint at all and simply washes clean. This single habit is the difference between a seal that stays soft for many years and one that fails early, and it is the most common cause of early failure the technician sees.
Garage Door Perimeter Weatherstrip
In the van
Flat bar, hammer and nail set
Exterior caulking and gun
Galvanized or stainless trim nails
Epoxy consolidant and exterior primer
Aluminum retainer and rubber insert
Garage Door Perimeter Weatherstrip
What affects the quote
Adding a brush or foam seal to the sides as well as the stop
Some households want only the top and side stop replaced, while others add a brush or foam seal along the same run for a tighter fit against wind-driven snow. That extra material and the time to fit it are agreed before the old stop comes off.
Commercial or oversized openings
Wider and taller commercial doors often carry an aluminum retainer with a rubber insert or a brush seal, and the material and fitting time differ from a residential vinyl seal.
Corner detailing
Mitred corners on a one-piece stop, or fitting round an unusual trim profile, take more cutting and fitting than butted corners on a plain jamb.
What to have ready
- Have mice, leaves or water been getting in?
- Is your garage attached to the house, and is it heated?
- Is it a single or double door, and roughly how wide and tall?
Garage Door Perimeter Weatherstrip: questions
QuestionsMy door was replaced last year. Does the perimeter seal need doing too?
Often, yes. A new door is sometimes fitted against the original wood stop and its old fin, and the new door may sit slightly differently in the opening, so the old seal no longer meets it. If daylight shows at the edges or the fin is hard and cracked, a new seal set against the new door completes the installation and matches the fresh look of the door.
Why should the seal only touch the door lightly?
The fin is meant to bend against the door with a small, even deflection. That is enough to seal, and it lets the fin spring clear as the door lifts. Pressed hard, it drags on the door face, folds under on the way down, squeals and wears through well before its time, and it adds load to the opener. Set too far off, it leaves a standing gap. The light touch is the setting that lasts.
What should I do before the technician arrives?
Move the car out of the garage or well back from the door, and clear anything stored against the jambs inside and any bins, planters or snow piled against them outside. Leave the door closed so the gaps can be seen as they are. If you have noticed where the daylight, drafts or snow come in, or where the mice appear, be ready to point it out.
Related services
- Garage Door Tune-UpSince the first cold snap the door has been sluggish.
- Off-Track Garage Door ResetYou tapped the door with the bumper while backing in, barely a nudge, and now the bottom corner has swung inward.
- Garage Door Panel ReplacementYou misjudged the last metre of the driveway and felt the bumper meet the door.