An uneven gap at the bottom of your garage door usually indicates that your cables have slipped or your torsion springs have lost their balance. In Richmond, this is frequently complicated by soil settling in neighborhoods like Bridgeport, where the concrete floor may no longer be level even if the door is.
When one side of the door sits higher than the other, the door is “out of level.” This is not just a cosmetic issue. A crooked door puts lopsided pressure on the rollers and tracks, which will eventually lead to a total system bind or a snapped cable. If you see a gap on one side, your door is working twice as hard to open, and your opener’s motor is likely straining against the friction.
Why is my garage door hanging crooked?
The most common culprit for a crooked door is a cable issue. Your garage door is lifted by two steel cables, one on each side, that wrap around drums at the ends of the torsion shaft. If the set screw on one drum loosens even slightly, that drum can slip. When it slips, the cable on that side loses tension. The result is a door that hangs lower on the side with the loose cable.
In coastal areas like Steveston, salt air is a major factor in hardware failure. Salt accelerates the corrosion of the galvanized steel cables, particularly at the bottom bracket where the cable “loop” is located. This area stays damp and collects road salt and debris. If a few strands of the cable rust through and snap, the cable stretches. That slight increase in length is enough to create a noticeable gap at the floor.
Another possibility is a “thrown” cable. This happens when the door hits an obstruction while closing. The cables go slack for a split second, and one jumps out of the grooves on the drum. Now, one cable is wrapping correctly and the other is tangled or hanging loose. The door will look severely tilted and will usually jam if you try to move it.
Is the problem the door or the floor?
Before assuming the door hardware is broken, you need to determine if the ground has moved. Richmond is built on a river delta, and it is common for garage floors in older homes near the West Cambie area to shift or sink over decades. If the concrete slab cracks and one side of the floor drops three-quarters of an inch, your perfectly level door will now show a gap.
You can check this yourself with a long carpenter’s level. Place the level on the floor across the opening. If the floor is level but the gap exists, the door is the problem. Next, place the level on the bottom strut of the garage door while it is closed. If the bubble shows the door is slanted, your cables or drums need adjustment.
If the door is level but the floor is not, you cannot fix the gap by adjusting the door. Trying to “level” a door to a crooked floor will cause it to run poorly in the tracks. In these cases, the solution is usually a larger bottom weather seal or a “bulb” seal that can compress more on one side to fill the void.
How to check garage door alignment safely
You should never attempt to loosen the bolts on the bottom brackets or the torsion shaft, but you can perform a visual inspection. With the door closed, look at the cables on both sides. They should be under equal tension and seated neatly in the grooves of the drums at the top.
Check the rollers. If a roller has popped out of the track on one side, the door will sit unevenly. Look for any obstructions in the tracks, like a stray pebble or a piece of wood, that might be preventing one side of the door from reaching the floor.
Open the door halfway and let go. A balanced door should stay in place. If the door immediately starts to tilt or slide down on one side, the spring tension is uneven. This is a clear sign that the torsion system needs professional calibration. Do not try to tighten the springs yourself; the tension required to lift a 200-pound door can cause the winding bars to kick back with enough force to cause permanent injury.
How a technician levels an uneven door
Fixing an uneven gap is a process of resetting the tension across the entire assembly. A technician does not just “tighten the loose side.” They usually begin by locking the door in place with vice grips to prevent it from moving.
The technician will then use specialized winding bars to take the tension off the torsion springs. Once the springs are neutral, they can loosen the set screws on the cable drums. This allows them to manually adjust the cable length on both sides until the door sits perfectly flush with the floor.
After the door is leveled, the technician resets the drums, tightens the set screws into the shaft, and adds tension back to the springs. They will then check the “balance” of the door. A properly repaired door should feel light enough to lift with one hand and should sit level at every point in its travel, from the floor to the header.
The risk of ignoring a crooked door
A door with an uneven gap is a door under stress. When the door is crooked, the rollers on the “low” side are being shoved into the track at an angle. This creates friction that grinds down the nylon or steel of the roller and can eventually bend the track itself.
Furthermore, your garage door opener is designed to lift a balanced load. If the door is tilted, the opener has to pull harder on one side of the carriage. This leads to stripped gears in the motor head and snapped drive belts. What started as a simple cable adjustment can quickly turn into a full opener replacement if left unaddressed.
In Richmond’s wet climate, that gap also invites pests and water. A gap of just half an inch is enough for rodents to enter or for heavy rain to blow under the door, leading to rot in your garage framing or damage to items stored on the floor.
Keeping your door level
The best way to prevent an uneven gap is regular lubrication and inspection. Every six months, spray a silicone-based lubricant on the torsion springs, rollers, and the cable drums. This prevents the cables from binding or “jumping” when the door moves.
Watch the cables for “birdnesting”—where the individual wires start to fray and stand up like a nest. If you see this, the cable is failing and will soon stretch or snap. Replacing cables before they break is a standard maintenance task that prevents the door from ever hanging crooked in the first place.
If your door is sitting unevenly or you see a gap at the bottom, have the tension checked. You can reach Up and Down Garage Doors at 778-873-7282 to get the door leveled and the cables inspected.