Common Garage Door Problems
Garage doors are our business at Boulder Garage Door, so we know all about the common garage door problems that our customers often face. In fact, with over 40 years of experience serving the residents of Boulder, Colorado and surrounding areas, we can honestly say that we’ve seen just about everything.
Garage doors are just one of many components in your home and chances are you don’t ever think about them too much, until something goes wrong! A malfunctioning garage door is quite a pain, especially if you’re having to leave your vehicle outside and exposed to the elements and or unscrupulous passersby.
To help avoid running into one of these common garage door problems, you can put a visual inspection on your to-do list once every couple of months. Twice a year, you should also lubricate the main parts. A well-built garage door should provide faithful service for years if you just keep up on these couple things to keep it well-maintained.
So, what about when you perform your inspection or any other time for that matter, you notice something not quite right with your door? Of course, when in doubt you can always immediately call the experts at Boulder Garage Door to come out and help you determine what’s wrong. However, if you like to try to figure things out on your own a little first, we’ll give you a basic idea of what might be wrong, and what you will need to do to get it fixed.
The door begins to make a thud when opening or closing
In smaller garage doors, as in 9 ft. X 7 ft. two systems are generally used. If you have a torsion spring system, it’s possible that the torsion spring is broken. To determine this, you can visually inspect the spring (keep hands away from springs at all times), which should be located somewhere above the door. If you have an extension spring system, find and observe the two springs, one above each horizontal rail. One of them may be broken and causing the problem.
Larger garage doors, as in 16 ft. X 7 ft., generally all use a torsion spring system but have two springs. Again, check the springs to see if one is broken. The one other possible cause for thudding is a broken lifting cable, or it is just about to break. If your springs look to be in good shape, check out the cables. If you find that any of these things are broken, it is not safe to be using your garage door. Call in the professionals immediately to get this hazard addressed.
The door is no longer on its hinges
The door can come off its hinges for a few reasons:
- One of the horizontal tracks is no longer in alignment
- A little metal bracket that can be found at the end of the track has come loose
- The bolts that hold the bracket have come unscrewed
If it is simply a case of the bracket coming loose or the bolts coming unscrewed you can tighten them yourself and see if that fixes the problem. This can only be done if the rollers are still in the tracks and you have the ability to close the door safely. While you’re at it, check to make sure that all tracks are aligned, and everything is parallel the way it should be.
Safety Tip! If your door has fallen on the floor, do not try to remedy the problem yourself. The door will need to be set up again professionally, and doing it on your own could result in serious injury.
Your door only works some of the time
If you’re having trouble getting the door to respond, the most common issue is that the batteries in your remote are dying. Obviously, that’s a simple fix as you just need to change out the batteries and see if that fixes the problem.
Another possibility, although somewhat unlikely, is that your neighbor has the same type of garage door opener and is using the same transmission code. This is only an issue on openers made before 1993, so as you can imagine it is pretty rare. However, try changing the code on your remote and see if that resolves the issue.
The door starts to close but then opens again
This is most likely due to one of the safety sensors getting knocked out of alignment. Garage doors have an invisible beam that goes across the opening, and if something interrupts that beam, the door will automatically open. This is to prevent garage doors from closing on people, pets, cars and more. Just find the sensors and make sure they are aligned properly. To help you with this, a blinking indicator light on the control panel will stop blinking when the sensors are in line.
Whenever you mess with the garage door sensors, you should also check the sensitivity to ensure that it is still functioning correctly. To do this, place a 2x4 board on the floor where the door will touch it when it closes. If the sensitivity is correct, the door will open immediately upon touching something in its way. Again, this is to make sure that your heavy garage door doesn’t squash someone or something.
You just get home, and your door suddenly won’t open
If your door stops working out of the blue, the simple solution could be that the power is out. Check to see if any lights work, and you’ve got your answer. If the power is out and you need to get your vehicle into the garage, you can tug on the emergency cord that will disengage the motor so that you can open the door manually. Just pull it forward again when you are ready to reattach the door to the motor.
So, as you can see some common garage door problems are easy fixes that you can easily handle yourself, and others can put you in a dangerous situation and are best left to the pros. Whenever you have issues with your garage door and don’t know what to do, you can always count on the friendly staff here at Boulder Garage Door to help you out. Get in touch for more information.
