Garage door won’t work; things to check before calling a professional

There’s never a good time for a garage door to stop working! After all, we only operate them when we are doing something. It may be as simple as opening the door to move the garbage can to the curb for pickup. Or maybe you’ve just come home after a long day at work and really want to relax and unwind. We depend on our garage doors to work safely and on-demand. These garage doors can be at home or at a business location; the bottom line is that they need to be dependable at all times. When they are not, we know to rely on professional garage door service technicians to help us out. Surprisingly, there are a few smart things we can do ahead of time that may even fix the problem! San Pedro Garage Door Repair offers these easy and simple tips that might just save you an unneeded service call and a few dollars!

Remote battery

Callers to our shop panic when the garage door doesn’t work! This happens here in San Pedro, CA and everywhere else that garage doors are installed. Often, something as simple as a remote battery can be the cause. These batteries wear out with use. If they run low the signal to the opener unit is weak or non-existent and the garage door will not move as expected. How can you tell if the problem is a low battery? Test it. If you have a battery tester at home; great! Use it and see for yourself. If not, simply take your remote battery to your local Wal-Mart, Target, Lowes, Home Depot or Best Buy store and they will be happy to test it for you – no charge.

While you are checking on your remote’s battery, be sure to check the terminals inside the remote that hold that battery in place. If they are loose, tighten them by gently squeezing them together with your fingers until they hold the battery securely in place. We’ve all dropped remotes on the ground or have accidentally sat on them if they are not attached to the visor. Sometimes, these actions can loosen the terminals, as can changing batteries over time.

Check your sensors

By sensors we mean your photoelectric safety eyes. If these aren’t working right, your remote control won’t work either. In fact, neither will your outside wireless keypad. Your sensors are designed with safety in mind. The two sensors beam lights to each other indicating that it’s safe to open or close the garage door. It’s these sensors that stop the garage door from moving if something (or someone) gets underneath it or in the way of the beams. Have you ever not parked far enough into the garage and the garage door starts to descend but goes back up before it hits your trunk? Your safety eyes did that! If the sensors are not aligned, they beams don’t connect and the garage door won’t move. Make sure that your sensors are clear from dirt, spider webs and other debris.

Remove cobwebs gently with a stick and clean your sensor lenses with a dry, soft cloth. Look for any cut or frayed wires and be sure to keep items that may block the signal or bump into the sensors far enough away so that they don’t interfere with the garage door’s movement. Items like these include rakes, garden tools, trash cans, dog food bags, bicycles, skateboards or anything else that is stored or kept in your garage. Being in San Pedro, CA we tend to collect lots of outdoor activity items like lawn movers, ATVs, sports equipment, fertilizer and other items that can crowd too close to your sensors and block the beam or even bump the sensors so that they no longer work right.

Manual lock

If your garage door has a manual lock, check to make sure that it is not engaged. These are mainly found on older garage doors and are easy to spot. If you try and open your garage door and you hear the opener motor run briefly and then shut off, it may be that your manual lock is engaged. This lock looks like a knob in the middle of the garage door with two bars that run horizontally from each side. To unlock your garage door turn that handle until you hear a clicking sound. This moves the horizontal bars away from the edges of the garage door so that it can now open.

Your garage door may have a manual side lock that you secured and forgot, or that someone else locked, and didn’t tell you about. These locks slide into a hole in the vertical track and keep the garage door from opening. Often they are used when people go away for a few days for vacation or on a road trip, and are meant to keep your garage door from opening by anyone having one of your remotes.

Check your lock button

Some garage door openers have a lock button located on the wall station inside the garage. These, act like the manual door locks mentioned above, and are designed to lock your garage, and prevent anyone with your opener from accessing the door and the interior of your house. If your opener system has one of these, be sure to check it. It may have been accidentally bumped or locked by a family member who forgot to tell you. Just like the other locking systems your garage door will not open if the lock button is activated. If you need assistance with this you can follow the directions in your owner’s manual or look on YouTube for videos describing your brand of garage door opener system. San Pedro Garage Door Repair hopes you enjoyed this post and have found it useful. You are always welcome to call us for affordable, 24-hour garage door service for both home and business.