Garage door rollers are one of the most important moving parts on your overhead door. Your garage door rollers are what support the weight of your overhead door when the door is rolling up and down on the tracks. Residential garage doors today weigh as little as 50 pounds and as much as 700 pounds which really stress the garage door rollers.
Many of today’s garage doors come from the factory with nylon rollers without ball bearings. These rollers although initially very quiet, wear quickly and eventually bind rather than roll freely. This particular type of roller is ok for lightweight non-insulated garage doors but should never be installed on heavy insulated overhead doors or carriage doors. Although these nylon garage door rollers without bearings shouldn’t be installed on heavier garage doors, companies will use them anyway to save money. When these rollers start to wear and begin binding rather than rolling they will put extra stress on the garage door sections causing them to rip or tear and will also put additional stress on the automatic garage door opener.
Nylon bearing-less rollers will squeak as they become worn and also cause the overhead door to creak and groan. The additional drag will pre-maturely wear out your automatic garage door opener or at bare minimum necessitate opener service.
The best bet is to always use garage door rollers with bearings and the more bearings the better. Garage door rollers with bearings come in long and short stem steel rollers with either 7 or 10 ball bearings. In my opinion the 7 bearing garage door rollers are useless, you’re far better off with 10 ball bearings they’ll last 3-4 times as long as the 7 ball rollers.
Steel 11 ball bearing rollers with a nylon tire on them are the quietest and most durable residential overhead garage door rollers you can purchase and are suited for any weight or size of garage door.
