How to Inspect a Door for Salt Damage

Salt damage is invisible from standing height and obvious from a crouch. This is what to look at, and in what order, once the snow has gone.

Start at the bottom of each track

Look at the last six inches of the vertical track and the fixing into the floor or jamb. Pitting, flaking or a white crust means chloride has been working there all winter. That is also where the lowest roller runs.

Then the cable terminations

Both cables end at the bottom bracket, at the lowest point of the door. Look for pitting and discoloration rather than only for fraying. A pitted cable has lost cross-section even where the strands look intact.

Then the inside face of the bottom section

Not the outside. Brine sits on the inner face where you never look, and a steel section rusts through from the inside outward. A section that looks sound from the driveway can be perforated behind the seal.

Then the lower hinges and roller stems

The bottom two hinges take the worst of it. A stem that has corroded where it enters the bearing will chew the bearing regardless of how new the roller looks.

What to do with what you find

Clean before lubricating - oil over corrosion traps chloride against the metal. Replace pitted cables rather than watching them. Specify galvanised or better-coated hardware for anything being renewed, because it is the same money at the point of replacement.

Free estimate — no charge for the visit

Tell us what the door is doing and we will tell you what it normally means in Rockford. Every job is quoted in person and in writing before any work starts.

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