GARAGE DOOR WON’T WORK; THINGS TO CHECK BEFORE CALLING A PROFESSIONAL
We expect our appliances to work on demand; every time! They should, too. After all, we paid good money for them, and they were built to serve our needs. It’s easy to just grab your smart phone and call for help.
Many parts
Your garage door consists of more than just a frame and a few panels. There are many parts, both large and small. Some of these consist of springs, pulleys, tracks, hinges, safety sensors, cables, sections, panels, opener unit, remote, wall unit, fasteners and many others. Each component has a job to do and must work correctly in order for the entire garage door to work safely and reliably. Let’s start our inspection with the most obvious parts that might stop your door from working!
Your remote’s battery
The small battery inside your opener’s remote can put a fast stop to any garage door movement. Sometimes, this item is so simple and small that it is overlooked and a full blown service call is scheduled. Simply remove your battery and test it for power. Is the battery good? Replace it in the remote and we’ll move on to something else. Is it low on “juice?” Put a new one in its place and you should be good to go! Do you have a home battery tester? This makes testing easy. You can buy a reliable one at most retail or hardware stores for about $20 and you can easily get one online or a used one on Craigslist or at a yard sale. Many local stores offer free battery testing so the totally free way to get yours done is to go to your local Target, Home Depot, K-Mart or Lowe’s.
Safety sensors
Here’s one quick check that can pay off for you. Have a look at your photoelectric safety eyes. Are they aligned correctly? Is your sensor beam uninterrupted? Is anything blocking your beam? Do you even have a beam or a light showing from one sensor to the other? Are your sensor wires cut or frayed? Are your lenses clean and not covered with spider webs, leaves or dead bugs? It seems like a lot to check but in truth, it can all be done in less than a minute. If you notice debris built up around your sensors, clean them up and be sure to remove any spider webs that you find there.
Manual lock
If you have an automatic garage door opener, you already have lock in place for your garage door. To demonstrate this, simply go outside your garage and try lifting up on your closed garage door. It doesn’t move. Unless your opener system was disconnected from the door (by pulling the cord by the light with the red knob attached to the end) the closed garage door will automatically be locked. Only two things can open it; the wall switch located inside the garage and the remote inside the car. A manual lock goes one step further. These locks are portable and are not attached permanently to anything. They can be opened by a key and attached to the garage door by an opening in the garage door track. The lock simply fastens on to the door and locks it in place and can only be removed manually with a key. People use manual locks for added protection and this prevents opening the door even with the remote. These locks are often used when the driver is on vacation or on a trip and the car still has the remote in it. Anyone with a copy of the remote could easily gain access to the property while the owner is away. These manual locks prevent that. If you are unsuccessful opening your garage door, check for a manual lock, especially if you know that someone in your household has one or has used it before.
Path blockage
It may not be obvious but sometimes the path is blocked and your garage door will not close properly. This is because modern garage doors are designed with a reversing mechanism that stops them from coming down hard and smashing objects in their path. You may not think that your garage door is that heavy but it is. On average a home garage door weighs several hundred pounds. Industrial and custom garage doors can weigh significantly more. It’s a good safety feature for your garage door to reverse course if something is “in the way.”
It doesn’t have to be a large object that can stop your garage door from closing. Trash cans and garden tools are enough but so are children’s toys and even grocery bags. Another item that can make your garage door reverse course is debris in your tracks. Your garage door rollers move up and down through your track system and if something blocks their movement, the garage door will automatically change direction and reverse course. Remember; the object of this safety feature is to prevent an object or person underneath the garage door from getting crushed. You can keep your door working reliably by keeping your tracks free of dirt, mud, grime, leaves or small stones. Even chewing gum and twigs can become lodged in your track system. Simply check yours for any debris and if found, clean it out with a toothbrush followed by a damp cloth run along the track length. You may need to use a step ladder in order to reach the top area of your tracks.