Adjusting Garage Door Limit Switches

March 13th, 2012 Posted in Garage Door Repairs
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Automatic garage door openers are equipped with several mechanisms that help ensure safe and proper operation.  These include the opening and closing limit switches, the opening and closing force mechanism, and the reverse contact mechanism.  All of these are usually set when the opener is installed, but sometimes need to be adjusted.

Be very careful when making any adjustments to your garage door opener or doing any kind of garage door repairs.  Garage doors are heavy moving objects and can easily cause a serious injury.  If you are uncomfortable at all with adjusting the garage door, please allow an experienced garage door service professional to handle the adjustments.

The open and close limit switches control how far the door opens and closes.  If the garage door stops before opening or closing completely, you may need to adjust the open or close limit switches.  Also, if the door closes completely, but then immediately reverses direction you may need to adjust the close limit switch.  What is happening here is that the opener is trying to close the door too hard and reversing safety feature is being activated.

Your owner’s manual will provide the details for your specific opener, but in general you can locate the switch adjustment knobs on the back or side of the opener power head.  They may be behind a panel or under the light cover.  You will probably need a flathead screwdriver to adjust the switch.  Turning the adjusting knob in one direction or the other adjusts where the door stops in the open or closed position.  Make small adjustments and operate the door to check the open and closed adjustments.  Continue making adjustments as necessary.

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Garage Door Opener Horsepower

March 13th, 2012 Posted in Garage Door Repairs
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If you are in the market for a new garage door opener, you will find that you have many options to choose from.  In addition to choosing between chain drive, belt drive, and screw drive, garage door openers, you will need to decide what horsepower you need.  Garage door openers are available in 1/3 hp, 1/2 hp, 3/4 hp and 1 hp.

Most homeowners are under the impression that a larger door needs an opener with more horsepower.  There is some element of truth to this, but opener horsepower has less to do with the size of the door that with noise level and durability.  It is true that larger garage doors weigh more than smaller doors, but garage door have lift assistance springs that handle most of the weight of the door.

A properly adjusted garage door of any size will be easy to open by hand and can be opened by the smallest garage door opener.  With that said, garage doors tend to fall out of adjustment over time and even change in a large garage door can result in overloading a low horsepower opener.

The main advantages of larger garage door opener motors is that they operate more quietly and they will last longer than a low horsepower opener because they do not work as hard to open the door.  In some cases, a higher horsepower motor will also open the door a little faster.

Most garage door openers have instructions for DIY installation, but for best results you should spend the money to have the opener professionally installed.  Garage doors are heavy moving objects and it is easy to get hurt working with a garage door.  Professional garage door opener installation will also ensure that your new opener is properly installed and adjusted for peak operation.  When you need garage door repairs including installation of a new garage door opener, call a garage door service professional.

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Dealing With Garage Door Problems

March 13th, 2012 Posted in Garage Door Repairs
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An automatic garage door that opens, turns on the lights, and closes with the touch of a button without you having to get out of your car is a wonderful convenience and safety feature of many homes.  But when your garage door is acting up it can be a source of endless frustration.

Most garage door repairs are best completed by a trained garage door technician.  Garage doors are much heavier than they seem and their lift systems are equipped with large lift assistance springs under a lot of pressure.  Unless you know what you are doing, it is very easy to be injured working on a garage door.  With that said, there are a few things you can check before calling the garage door service company.

If the door stops working completely check your circuit breakers to make sure there is power to the opener.  If the opener keeps tripping the breaker, you have a serious problem and should call a garage door service technician.  If you have power to the opener, your safety sensors may have been knocked out of alignment.  These are photoelectric sensors usually located near the floor level.  They must point at each other and not be obstructed.

If the opener seems to be running but the door doesn’t move, the door may have been disconnected from the opener at the safety release.  You can usually re-connect the door by operating the opener to the open position, then manually lifting the door until it engages with the opener carriage.  If the door is heavy and difficult to open, call your garage door service company.  You may have a broken lift assist spring.

If your garage door is still not operating properly, call your local garage door repair service.

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Garage Door Track Repairs

March 13th, 2012 Posted in Garage Door Repairs
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If your garage door is not opening and closing smoothly, there can be many different causes but the garage door tracks are one common cause of garage door problems.  Whether you have a one piece or sectional garage door, your overhead garage door is equipped with rollers that move along metal tracks on either side of the door as the door opens and closes.

These rollers can sometimes become jammed or damaged, but a track misalignment is a more common source of door opening and closing problems.  The door tracks have to be properly aligned for the door to open and close smoothly.  Over time, the tracks can shift out of alignment if the hardware holding the track sections together loosens or if the track mounting brackets separate from the wall.  Also, a track can be bent or damaged by an impact with a car.

To check for track problems, inspect the tracks with the door closed.  Look for loose hardware that connect the track sections together, connect the track sections to the mounting brackets, and hold the mounting brackets to the wall.   If you find loose hardware, you can tighten everything back up, but the tracks may be out of alignment so try to align the tracks with each other and vertically along the wall as you tighten the hardware.

If everything seems tight, the tracks themselves may have been bent or twisted, usually due to being hit by a vehicle.  Sight along the tracks to see if they are straight and bend smoothly throughout the curved section.  You may be able to straighten a slightly bent or twisted track section, but in most cases you will be better off installing a new section of track.

Properly aligning garage door tracks is more complicated than it looks so don’t be disappointed if you have trouble getting the tracks properly aligned.  Your local garage door service company will be happy to send a trained garage door technician to your home to handle any garage door repair issues.

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Aligning Your Garage Door Electronic Eye

March 13th, 2012 Posted in Garage Door Repairs
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One common problem that will stop your garage door from closing properly is a misaligned electronic eye.  All residential garage door openers sold in the United States since 1993 are required to be equipped with an external entrapment protection device to prevent injuries due to being crushed by closing garage door.  The vast majority of these safety sensor devices are electronic eyes that can sense an obstruction in the path of the door.  If an obstruction is “seen” by the electronic eye, the door will be stopped and reversed.

If your garage door has suddenly stopped closing, there may be a problem with the electronic eye.  Removing an obstruction or adjusting the electronic eye is a fairly simple procedure, but electronic eye replacement is a garage door repair that should be left to the professionals.

The electronic eye system consists of two sensors mounted near floor level at the bottom of the garage door opening.  One sensor transmits a beam to the receiving eye and when this beam is broken by a pet, child, or other obstruction the operation of the garage door is stopped and door is operated to the fully open position.

Before you call the garage door service company, check to see if something is blocking the beam.  If so, remove the obstruction and check the door opener for proper operation.  If not, it is possible that the sensors have been knocked out of alignment.  Some sensors have lights that indicate that they are aligned properly.  Look for a yellow or orange light on the sending unit that indicates that a beam is being sent and a green light on the receiving unit that indicates that the beam is being received.

If the green light is not on, try adjusting the sensors so that they point directly toward each other.  Once the sensors are aligned, check for proper door operation.  If the door is still not closing or opening properly, have it checked out by a professional garage door repair technician.

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