5 Reasons Your Garage Door Won’t Close
As residential and commercial garage door repair professionals, we at Door Doctors have dealt with any issue you can think of when it comes to garage door repair. But sometimes, some problems continue to surprise us, like the tennis ball that somehow managed to knock the door entirely off its track or the tiny insect nest growing on the photo-eye sensor. Even though these issues are not that common, it’s nothing that garage door service professionals like us can’t handle!
While you may be thinking of fixing the problems yourself, there are many reasons it is best to leave the garage door repair up to professionals like us. Knowing what’s wrong with your garage door will help you determine if it’s time to call someone for assistance. To help you troubleshoot your garage door issues, here are the top 5 reasons your garage door won’t work.
1. FAULTY SAFETY SENSORS
First and foremost, and perhaps most commonly, your safety sensors may not be functioning properly. The twin sensors are situated at the bottom of your garage door, less than six inches above the ground. They face each other, sending a signal across the length of the doorway to determine whether anything is preventing the door from closing.
If any one of these sensors stops receiving power or is not emitting the signal properly, your door will respond by failing to close all the way. This safety can be annoying when there isn’t anything blocking the door. If the root cause behind your door not closing is a sensor failure, you can contact us to purchase a new pair of sensors and replace the faulty ones.
2. SAFETY SENSOR MISALIGNMENT
Most times, the photo eyes work properly; however, they send a perpetual signal to your garage door that something is obstructing its path due to misalignment. It occurs if the sensor gets struck or moved out of place. Most sensors are equipped with a light that informs you whether they’re in alignment or not for your convenience. When the light is solidly on, both sensors are aligned and functioning properly. When the light starts to blink, they’re out of alignment. We at Door Doctor can usually correct this problem by returning the sensors to their proper orientation.
3. BROKEN SPRINGS
Garage doors heavily rely on different springs to open and close with ease. If any of these springs are damaged or broken, it could lead to misalignment, and the door may not close properly. Fortunately, you can easily tell when one of these springs has been damaged. With a brief visual inspection, you’ll be able to diagnose the problem almost immediately. But we recommend leaving all spring repairs to a professional like us.
4. DOOR TRAVEL LIMITS
The problem may also lie within the travel distance setting on your door. Many garage door openers have a default setting to tell the garage door how far to close. The door can be improperly set after installation, or it may slowly drift away from the original set over time. If the setting is too high, the door will stop short of the actual ground. If the setting is too low, it will “think” it’s hit an object when it’s hit the floor. Either way, you will have to adjust the door travel limit setting. Different models of openers have different ways of achieving this. But it’s generally done with knobs on the machine itself.
5. SOMETHING BLOCKING THE DOOR
Though this problem should be obvious, you shouldn’t overlook it. If something is blocking the door from closing all the way, a full closure will be impossible. Try checking your garage floor and it’s surrounding areas for any objects or debris causing the door to close improperly. You should also check the tracks, and the garage door itself, for the culprit.
Contact Door Doctor for any Garage Door Related Problems
At Door Doctor, we’ve been installing and repairing garage doors for many years. We know the ins-and-outs of commercial and residential garage door repair, and we can help you diagnose your garage door issues if you’re still uncertain what the problem is. We handle everything from garage door replacement to automatic garage door repair.
We provide repairs and service to customers in Kingston, Montreal, and the surrounding areas. Get in touch with us today to answer your garage door questions or schedule a service and installation with our skilled garage door technicians.
