So, you just bought an aluminum garage door and even had it installed professionally. It looks great, works great, and is well worth the investment. Three days later, your children go out and use it as a backstop to play fetch and catch with the dog. Now, there is a dent. A DENT, in your brand new garage door. What do you do now? Call a professional, live with it, or fix it yourself? Using the laws of physics, you can do it yourself with just a few tools.
What You Need
You will need a pail of clean water, some dish soap (preferably Dawn as its properties are best suited for this use), a heavy duty sponge, a roll of aluminum foil, a heat source, and a can of air. Yep, that is all you need. You don’t need to drill; you don’t need to sand; you don’t even need to paint. Oh, yes, you do need time on a clear day. This cannot be performed on a rainy day. The necessary physical forces are just not there under those conditions.
Clean with Soap
Make sure your pail is clean. Fill it with water. Put in 1 teaspoon of dish soap. No more than that. Adding more causes a film buildup that will counter the forces you are trying to employ. Swirl the water with the sponge while walking up to the garage door. Mix thoroughly. You do not want an inadequate mixture. Wash the dent vigorously. You need to get all the dirt off the dent. This is a must for this operation to succeed. Give the dent plenty of time to dry. The suggested time is 1 hour on a clear day, longer if there are clouds.
Apply Aluminum Foil and Heat
Once you have allowed the time for the dent to dry, measure and cut a portion of aluminum foil. This should be large enough to cover the dent and allow room at the side for you to hold the foil in place. While holding the foil in place, apply your heat source. This can be a mere lighter. For best results use a heat lamp. Make sure to apply the heat evenly across the whole surface of the foil. You should only need to heat the foil for 1 minute. This actually uses the properties of the aluminum foil to transmit and carry the heat into the dent.
Using the Air Can
After heating, remove the foil and immediately pick up the air can. While holding it upside down from an angle above the dent, spray for 30 seconds back and forth making sure to hit all areas of the dent. Holding the air can upside down ensures that you are distributing the intense cold of the liquid carbon dioxide inside.
Stand back and watch as the disparity in temperatures forces the aluminum inside the dent back into its previous form. The heating of aluminum molecules followed immediately with an intense cooling agent, such as liquid carbon dioxide, activates them and returns them to the form of least resistance, which is a smooth surface. It is a wonder of physics.
What you have done is remove an unsightly dent from your perfect and expensive door and done so at minimal cost. Remember, such repair can only be done under good conditions. Any rain would make such a repair job impossible.
All Done?
Now you can admire your door once again. Call your children and have them put all this stuff away. Even better, call them at the beginning of the repair and have them appreciate your knowledge and expertise. Call it a lesson in thriftiness from their father (or mother). You could also let them know that such repair techniques can also be used on a dented car, not only on garage doors – something that may be helpful for them in the future.
All Four Seasons Garage Doors is the premier full-service vendor for garage doors Atlanta GA. We are home of the Sevice Call, offer FREE estimates, 24/7 emergency service, and affordable prices! For more information, give us a call today at 678-981-8454!