You count on your garage door every day. It’s the one thing that stands between your valuable vehicles and the harsh elements. the one thing that can be moved to allow your car access to the outside world. So when it doesn’t open with your conventional control methods, it can be frustrating. Nobody likes their day-to-day routine grinding to a halt.
Door Power, your Norwood provider of garage door repair services, is here to help. If you find your garage door firmly glued to the ground, one of the first steps is to call us for personalized help.
Until we get there, here are a few tips to get your day back on track – and keep your family safe while doing it!
Common Reasons a Garage Door Won’t Open
Whether you immediately call a garage door professional or want to do everything you can to fix the problem yourself, understand the most common reasons that your door isn’t opening before you do anything.
Misaligned Photo Eye
Among the first things to check is that your garage door opener isn’t working, which, technically speaking, is a misaligned photo eye. The photo eye is the safety sensor on a garage door, and it detects anything in front of the door. While that is an amazing safety feature, a misaligned sensor ensures that even an operable garage door opener won’t work. If you know where the photo eye is, clean it off with a soft rag and try to open the door again.
Not Enough Pulling Force
You may also need to adjust the opener’s pulling force. This typically happens to garage door openers over five years old, and it was originally programmed to exert the specific amount of force needed to pull the garage door up.
A garage door opener that hasn’t been properly “synced” with the weight of the door when it’s supposed to open can result in the door staying firmly anchored to the ground. If this is the problem, you can check your owner’s manual location to use a wrench to increase the opener’s pulling power.
Broken Springs, Tracks, & Other Parts
Other common reasons include a misaligned track, broken tension springs, and, of course, a disconnected or broken remote control. Do not attempt to realign your garage door’s track or fix tension springs, however.
Unlike a dirty photo eye, this is a job best left to the professionals as it can be dangerous and potentially open the door for more extensive, and expensive, repairs.
Determining the Severity of the Issue
There is no need to run comprehensive diagnostics to find out the severity of the issue with your garage door. As garage door installation experts, that’s our job. However, knowing how “bad” the issue is determines your next course of action—whether you need to remove people from the area or not.
For example, a garage door track issue or a broken door spring may require that you stay far away, but a bum garage door remote that needs replacement can easily be worked around.
What Does a Severe Issue Look Like?
As we stated above, they generally consist of something physical—a broken spring, cable, etcetera. So if you see something hanging out where it shouldn’t, or if your garage door is lurching off of its tracks, it’s common sense that you’d hightail it out of there.
But it’s sometimes hard to know what to look for if you’re not a garage door expert, so here’s an excellent rule of thumb:
If you can’t determine what’s wrong with your garage door in uncertain terms, try to stay away until help arrives.
You might worry about your belongings, but the vast majority of garage door repair issues aren’t catastrophic. That being said, one wrong move can still lead to serious injury, especially if garage door cables are involved.
Check for Human Error Before Calling for Garage Door Repair
Garage door technology has advanced wildly in recent years. Check out our blog on merging your garage door with your smart tech: Two Great Garage Door Features for Your Automated Home.
If there is human error, you may still need help from an expert. No machine is infallible, and simple human error can lead to various garage door “issues.”
Take, for example, misadjusted garage door opener sensitivity. It’s a common issue in newer garage doors that haven’t been adequately installed and an easy fix for a garage door professional, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less annoying.
While you might not be able to tell the full extent of what’s wrong with your garage door, the moral of the story is that when it comes to garage door problems, it’s helpful to check for a simple human error before calling for repair.
Is something like a tree, for example, blocking the signal between your remote and the opener? Has the motor been accidentally deactivated by a pull of the emergency cord?
How to Keep Things Moving
If human error isn’t the issue and it’s dangerous to operate your garage door, how can you get your life moving again? If your vehicle’s stuck in the garage, you’re essentially housebound until your garage door gets the care it needs.
Rest assured, though, that you won’t be as such for long! Door Power frequently offers same-day service in our surrounding areas. Indeed, if your garage door is ailing and you can’t afford to wait, we’re just the garage door repair pros for the job. Our prompt attention and responsive contact capabilities mean we’re the first stop if a finicky door has stalled your life.
However, keeping your daily routine going takes a little resourcefulness and quick thinking until we get there. For example, can you use ride-share apps to get to the office or work from home? Can you recruit a neighbor to get your kids to school? Can you leave a key for your spouse under the porch flower pot so they can get inside after their shift?
If your garage door hasn’t ever been in an inoperable state, it might be helpful to think of what you’d do if things did come to that. As the pros in the garage door repair business say, preventative maintenance is critical, and by coming up with an emergency plan, you’re doing a unique form of it.
Door Power: Sensational and Same-Day Garage Door Service
Our Norwood team of garage door repair pros is here to help, no matter the urgency of your problem. Give us a call today at 952-467-3199.