If a roller has jumped out of the track, stop pressing the button. Pull the red release cord so the opener lets go of the door, keep people and cars out of the opening, and call (613) 845-9950. The Ottawa branch answers that line around the clock from 46 Grenfell Crescent Unit A in Nepean. Every cycle run against a derailed door drags it further out of line, and that is how a roller becomes a bent track and a creased section. Why it happens, and why levering it back in is riskier than the videos suggest, is on the off-track page.
February, and a driveway one car wide
Environment Canada's 1991 to 2020 normals for the Ottawa airport count 54.1 days a year with 20 cm or more of snow on the ground. By February the banks either side of a driveway have been built up by every shovel since December, and the driveway is narrower than the car is used to. Packed ruts on a slope pull a reversing car sideways. The first thing within reach is the bottom corner of the door.
A clipped corner does not look like much from the driver seat. Inside, the bottom roller has popped out of the vertical track, the hinge on that section may be bent, and the next close drags that side down crooked. Look along both tracks from inside before running the door again after any bump, however light it felt.
Old garages with light track
The 2021 census counts 64,815 Ottawa homes built in 1960 or before. Behind many of them the garage is a separate building, and the door in it has been replaced once or twice onto whatever track was already there. Light-gauge track on wooden jambs that have dried and shrunk over sixty winters flexes when the door runs, and a flexing track gives a roller room to climb out. Tightening the brackets buys time. Where the jamb no longer holds a lag screw, the track is remounted on fresh wood, and that is part of the repair rather than an extra.
Steel rollers with dry bearings do the rest. A roller that has stopped turning slides, and a slider leaves the channel sooner or later. Sealed-bearing nylon rollers are the usual fix; the Ottawa parts page lists what else wears at the bottom of a door here.
Ice in the channel
Snow melts off the car, runs to the foot of the vertical track and freezes there. A roller coming down onto a ridge of ice in its own channel is pushed out sideways, usually on the side where the car drips most. Chip the track clear before closing the door on a cold night, and keep the ice melt away from the rollers and the bottom brackets.
Before the van gets there
Leave the door where it stopped, with the cord pulled. Clear a metre along each track inside the garage, because that is where the ladder and the clamps go. If a car hit it, take photos from inside and out before anything is moved. Then the door is clamped, the cable tension comes off in order, the door goes back in its track, and the cause gets fixed: track, rollers, cables, brackets. It is balanced by hand before the opener is reconnected.
Everything we do in Ottawa · Garage door off track: what the job involves
Ottawa branch
- Ottawa
- The van leaves from
- 46 Grenfell Crescent Unit A, Ottawa, ON, K2G 0G4
- Phone
- Hours
- Open 24 hours, seven days
- Brands installed and serviced
- Garaga, Amarr, Stanley, LiftMaster, Chamberlain, Genie
Related
Everything else we repair and install
Every one below has a page of its own, written the same way this one was.
Garage door spring repair in Ottawa
Broken garage door springs? We replace torsion and extension springs safely and professionally to get your garage door working properly again.
Garage door safety sensor repair in Ottawa
Garage door sensor repair: the door starts down and reverses, or the opener light blinks. What the photo eyes are telling you, and when it is only alignment.
Garage door parts in Ottawa
Springs, cables, drums, rollers, hinges, brackets, seals and opener parts. What is on the truck, what is matched to the door, and what is not a DIY part.
Stuck garage door in Ottawa
A door that will not move, or stops halfway. The check order that tells you whether it is the opener, the springs, the track or ice, before anyone touches it.
Garage doors in Ottawa
Steel, aluminium and glass, wood and composite garage doors from Garaga, Amarr and Stanley. What the material, the layers and the insulation actually change.
Garage door installation in Ottawa
Headroom, backroom and track type decide which doors will fit an opening. What an installation involves, and why the springs are sized to the new door.
Garage door replacement in Ottawa
Panel damage, rust at the bottom section, repeated failures and an uninsulated door on a heated garage. The four cases where replacing beats another repair.
Residential garage doors in Ottawa
Raised panel, carriage, flush contemporary and full-view residential garage doors. How the style, the windows and the hardware change the front of a house.
Commercial garage doors in Ottawa
Sectional and rolling steel overhead doors for shops, warehouses and loading bays. Duty cycle, spring life and the tracking that decides which one fits.
Asked before booking garage door off track
Answered for Ottawa, on the number this branch answers.
How do I tell a jumped roller from a snapped cable?
Look at the drum at each end of the shaft above the door. If the cable is wound neatly on both drums and a roller is out of the track, it is the roller. If the cable on one side hangs loose or has unwound, the cable is the fault, and the roller came out because that corner dropped. Both mean leave the door alone. The cable version is the more dangerous, because that side of the door is no longer held by anything.
Only one roller came out. Do they all need changing?
It depends on why it came out. After a car strike with sound rollers elsewhere, the one that jumped and any hinge that bent are replaced and the rest stay. On a door still on its original steel rollers, the whole set is changed together, because a set that has done the same number of cycles fails one after another, and the door runs evenly only when all of them roll.
The car is inside and the door is off its track. Can I drive out underneath it?
No. A derailed door is held by less than it looks, and a car passing under it can be where it lands. Leave the car where it is and tell the branch it is shut in, which moves the job up the day. If the car is running when this happens, switch it off: an engine left idling in a closed garage is a carbon monoxide risk.
Talk to Protech Garage Doors today
Call (613) 845-9950 at any hour, or email info@protechgarage.ca for a new-door quote with no rush.