Three Ways To Take Dents Out Of Your Aluminum Garage Door

Aluminum garage doors are cheap, easy to find and purchase and relatively easy to install because they are not as heavy as any other type of garage door. Unfortunately, the qualities that make these aluminum garage doors attractive to homeowners are some of the same qualities that make the doors so easy to damage or cause people to be careless with them. If you have a dent in one or more panels of your aluminum garage door, here are three things you can do to remove the dents.

Hammering out the Dents Yourself

If you want to try hammering out the dents yourself, you will need a rubber-headed mallet and a gentle touch. The reason behind this is that if you use a metal-headed mallet or hammer, you can actually make the dents much worse. The metal-headed mallet or hammer will create multiple extra dents inside the large dent, giving the damaged door panel a sort of bubbled appearance. 

If you would prefer a flat, even appearance, use the rubber-headed mallet to tap gently along the dents from the opposite side of the garage door. It is a good idea to have someone else stand on the indented side of the damaged panel to keep your taps from the oppositie side from moving too far forward. Otherwise, remove the panel, clamp it between two c-clamps on a work table and tap out the dents on one side while guiding the strikes with your free hand on the other side.

Replacing the Damaged Panels

Instead of repairing the dented panels, you can just replace them. It is also an option that some garage door repair services offer you. Just remove the damaged panels and measure them carefully before taking them and/or the measurements to a home remodeling and construction store to order fresh panels.

Replacing the Entire Door

If your aluminum garage door is outdated or so badly damaged that tapping out the dents or replacing damaged panels simply will not work, you may replace the door entirely. You can either do the ordering and replacement work yourself, or you can call a garage door repair service, likeAmerica's Garage Doors LLC, who will handle the entire job from estimates to final installation and testing. Since it does take some time to remove the old door and install the new one, most homeowners in this position opt to have the repair technician handle the entire job.