Every day since spring it seems,
the temperature has been going up to 90 and every afternoon the thunder-boomers
do their thing on different parts of the metro area, but never rain at your
house.
Every stinkin' day.
Then one day the unbelievable
happens, you get clouds, and some real rain - of course with some lightning and
thunder mixed in.
Beginning the next day your
garage door won't close. Oh sure, your
remote will open the garage door, but it won't close the garage door.
So did you enjoy the rain? And what is wrong with your garage door?
It's probably not your door, it's
probably the door sensors.
Yes, those little gadgets that
almost sit on the floor of your garage attached to the door track tend to be
sensitive to area lightning strikes.
See, one sensor shoots an
infra-red beam of light to the other. If
that beam of light is broken then the door will stop coming down, sometimes by
going up immediately, sometimes by just stopping in place. If the sensor is fried you get the same deal.
The sensors are there as a safety
device to keep wandering children or pets from getting hit by a lowering garage
door. They are also there so you won't
close your garage door on the new convertible - the one you talked your wife
into letting you buy since your kids are out of college and your house will be
paid off in almost 7 years - the car that you have pulled only halfway into the
garage so your neighbors can still see it as they smile to themselves knowing
that you are in way over the thinning hair on your head.
Fear not though - you can usually
fix this yourself. (The sensors, not the
thinning hair.)
First, make sure that they are
fried. You can do this by making sure
they are lined up properly (sometimes they do get kicked out of alignment) by
trying to aim them, or by taking one off the garage door track and holding it
right in front of the other.
Still no good? Then it is replacement time.
Replacements are available from
leading garage door companies and at some big box stores.
Not a tough swap, unplug the
garage door opener, read all the instructions (they usually come in three
languages - French, Italian, and German) and go at it.
However - know this…
If you swap them out and your
opener still doesn't work, then not only are the old sensors kaput but probably
the computer board in the opener itself, which means you will also have to
either get a new computer board installed or replace the opener.
New openers are nice, and you can
install them yourself, but they require some little details you will need to
pay attention to:
-
You will need a new outside mounted opener if
you already have one of those. Also will
need to reprogram the code for that.
-
You will need new remote openers for your cars
or whatever you use a remote for. Make
sure you have enough of them, some new doors only come with two.
-
You will have to reprogram your car with the new
opener code if you have the little button in the car that will open your garage
door.
-
If you have a system where you can control
everything in your house off your smart phone including your garage door you
will have to reprogram the new door to fit that.
So there you go - now you are a
garage door company! Congrats!
For me, I will DIY until it comes
to needing a new garage door opener.
Then I will call in a pro who will also examine my door to make sure it
is in good shape as well as the tension spring.
Two final notes - your garage door will still close electronically
if the sensors are fried but you have to do it by holding down the main button
which is probably by the door leading into your house. Hold it down until the door is all the way
down.
So you can still remote it up and
hold the main button down to lower it.
Number 2 - you will notice that nowhere in this entire piece did I
mention removing your door from the tracks or adjusting/loosening/removing the
spring. You don't need to do it for this
job so don't even mess with it. Anything
spring related is garage professional territory.