Newer garage doors can weather all sorts of issues, but if the door is made of metal, dents can become a problem. Even great-quality garage doors can get them, just as luxury cars can get door-dinged in a parking lot. If you've just replaced your garage door with one that could be dented, you need to do what you can to protect the door. New garage doors look great and help increase your home's curb appeal, but if they get a dent, that curb appeal can shrink rather quickly. Preventing and fixing dents fast are necessary actions.

Preventing Them in the First Place

To prevent dents, you need to remove as many causes as possible. Don't put a basketball hoop in the driveway, for example, and get your kids in the habit of walking their bikes into the driveway instead of riding them in and braking at the last minute (when they could potentially hit the door). If your neighbors have anything that can cross over into your driveway, like their own basketball hoop, it's time to build a hedge that could help stop errant basketballs. You can't prevent all causes of dents, but you can go a long way toward protecting the door.

What to Do if One Appears

If you do what you can, but the door still gets a dent, you have options. Dent repair is possible in many cases; you'll see some DIY suggestions online, but professional repair is really the way to go to save your warranty. Plus, many of these DIY suggestions involve heating the door to soften the metal and make it pop back out, and that's not really a procedure you want to mess with because of the potential for error and injury.

Bad dents may require replacement. This is not as hard as it sounds; it does have to be done by professionals, but if the dent is restricted to one panel, the cost won't be that expensive. Chances are that the entire door won't need to be replaced. The dent would need to be huge for that and span several panels, in which case other parts of the opening mechanism could have been damaged, too.

Nobody likes to find a dent in their new garage door, but it can happen. If you find one, try to find out the cause, too, if you didn't see it actually happen. That allows you to set up more defenses to prevent that from happening again. Then, call the garage door company to discuss costs and repair timeframes.

For more information, contact a garage door service in your area.

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