Garage door opener repair

Most of the time it's the photo eyes. The federal safety standard for residential openers made on or after January 1, 1993 requires entrapment protection, and the usual form is a pair of photo eyes near the floor. DASMA says the beam must be no higher than six inches off the floor so a small child can't crawl under it. If the eyes are dirty, knocked out of line or wired badly, the opener won't close the door from a remote, and it will only close while someone holds the wall button down.

IDA's guidance is to wipe the lenses with a soft, dry cloth, gently realign them by hand, and test again by breaking the beam as the door closes. If the eyes check out, the next suspects are the travel limits, which tell the opener where closed is, and the force setting, which decides how hard it pushes before it reverses. DASMA says forces should be set to the minimum needed to run the door reliably. Turning the force up to get past a sticky door defeats the safety system, so we fix the sticking instead.

Inside a typical ceiling-mounted opener, the motor drives a chain, belt or screw that pulls a trolley along the rail, and the trolley's arm moves the door. Limit switches tell the motor where to stop, and a control board runs the sequence and monitors the safety devices. When the motor runs but the trolley doesn't move, look at the drive: a worn gear or sprocket, a loose chain or belt, or a trolley that's been released. When nothing happens at all, it's usually power, the board or the controls.

Delaware's spring and summer thunderstorms are hard on electronics. DASMA defines a surge suppressor as a device that protects a circuit from power surges or lightning strikes, and an opener's control board is exactly that kind of circuit. After a storm, a dead opener with a working outlet often points to the board or its power supply. Sometimes a board is worth replacing; on an older opener, a new unit can make more sense, and we'll tell you which.

Start with the battery. DASMA's remote troubleshooting guide says many remote problems come down to old or badly installed batteries, and that trying a second remote or a wireless keypad tells a dead transmitter from a receiver problem. The same guide flags LED and compact fluorescent bulbs in or near the opener as a source of radio interference, so if range dropped right after a bulb change, that's a clue.

There's a local wrinkle around Dover. DASMA notes that the military's land mobile radio system, operating at installations since 2004, can interfere with garage door remotes, and that homes near a base may see it. Dover Air Force Base sits about 2 miles southeast of the city. Interference like that usually calls for a receiver or frequency retrofit rather than a new opener, and in the meantime the wall button and other hard-wired controls still work.

An opener with no photo eyes or edge sensor, built before the 1993 federal standard, isn't a repair candidate. DASMA's advice is that if your opener lacks a second safety reversing feature like photo eyes, it's time for a new one, and back in 1992 the Consumer Product Safety Commission said openers without automatic reversal should be replaced immediately. We'll tell you plainly if the opener on your ceiling falls in that group, and our opener installation page covers what comes next.