Hardware age progression
That gradual failure pattern comes straight from the age of the hardware. Most houses in West Jefferson went up around 1970, which puts the original springs, rollers, and track a decade or more past when a garage door system is built to run smooth. Across the wider Boone service area, the median build year runs closer to 1979, so West Jefferson sits on the older end of a region that's already mostly 1960s-70s stock.