The floor in my garage is not leveled; can it damage my garage door?
An un-even floor in your garage it is very common. In most cases its due to foundation movement, tree root, seasonal wether patterns and can be a little as a 1\8 inch difference on either side of the bottom garage door.
A more severe uneven floor can be up to a foot in some places where homes are built on a hill and require a custom fit bottom section that is up to 21 inches difference. Because of these differences of the driveway you will require a custom made bottom section that makes up for the severe difference in slope. When the floor of a garage is un-even it is either on the left, right side, or the other defect called high center which means the center of the garage door floor is higher than the left or right side.
As far as uneven floor damaging a garage door it is most likely not possible unless there was some extreme measures that occurred after the door was installed – like an earthquake or major foundation issues. If your garage door does not feel correctly at the bottom of the door and light or water can easily penetrate, then it is possible to fix this problem by installing a wider bottom rubber seal.
Most of the time this will help with sealing the door to the garage floor. Now if you have grass and tree roots growing through your foundation in the garage then the floor of your garage looks like an accordion. This might help a little bit but probably not completely seal. But if there are only slight differences in measurement that are off on your foundation in the garage then it can usually be resolved.
When homeowners have this issue we usually recommend using a self-leveling concrete that you can purchase at any major hardware store like Home Depot, Ace and Lowes. If floor in your garage for some reason has changed due to Foundation settling for a natural disaster you should definitely call a professional.
When a garage door is installed correctly then you should not have any problem with it at all – no matter what the foundation in your garage condition (you may have minor gaps at the bottom if the floor is uneven). If you open your garage door fully to the open position you can inspect the condition of your bottom seal. If it does have some damage then it’s should be replace to avoid rodents’ entry. You can sometimes find a replacement bottom seal at a near by garage door repair shop. An important advice is to cut off a small piece of the bottom seal and take it with you to a near by garage door shop and make sure it’s match.
There are many different kinds of bottom seal, the most common ones are:
Single T channel
Double T channel
P bulb (Windsor)
“O” single channel (Clopay)
