Are you dealing with a garage door that won’t close all the way down? How many times have you found yourself in a situation waiting for it to close, only to have it go back up once it touches the bottom? We can understand how frustrating this situation can be for every homeworker.
Garage doors are heavy. In order to prevent any injuries and make parking convenient, many garage doors have safety sensors to automatically open the door. So, when the garage door doesn’t close all the way, it may be a sensor’s fault. However, that’s not it. There can be other possible reasons as well, like something blocking the door, sensor misalignment, broken spring, etc. Therefore, it’s imperative to understand the possible reasons for the garage door problem.
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So, keeping that in mind, we’ve created this guide with complete information regarding fixing a garage door and the reasons.
1. Faulty Safety Sensors
If the garage goes up but won’t close all the way down, it can be due to faulty safety sensors. It’s one of the most common causes of the garage door problem situation. There are two safety sensors or twin sensors situated at both sides of the garage door. Both sensors have lights that should be on, indicating that sensors are wording fine or emitting the signal properly. In case you notice that one of two lights is not on or blinking, that means it is transmitting the wrong signal, and that’s why the door is not going all the way down. You can try to push the sensor and see if the light comes back and stays on. If it doesn’t respond and there is a sensor failure, you need to purchase a new pair of safety sensors and replace them.
2. Frequent Sensor Misalignments
In many cases, the sensors are correctly functioning. However, they are sending the wrong signals due to misalignment. For example, they send a signal like something is in the way that results in the garage door won’t close all the way down. The sensor misalignment can happen due to a variety of reasons, dost, and water entering the garage door, the vibration of the garage door throwing off the sensors, etc. To solve that, make sure to realign the sensors, cleans them, and tight the screw of sensors a little hard.
3. Inspect the Trolley
The garage doors are connected with the opener through a mechanism called a trolley. To make it easier for you, you can think of a trolley like a rope that engages and disengages the doors by the chain-driven door opener. First, try to move the garage door using your hands. If it moves freely, that indicates that the trolley is in bypass mode. Now, all you need to do is an activity the garage door opening by pulling the rope towards the door, so the trolley comes out of bypass mode.
Broken Springs
Garage doors are heavily equipped with several springs that make the door opening and closing easy. If there’s any spring broken or damaged, it can cause garage door problems like door misalignment, door not going all the way, and some other issues as well. However, fixing a broken springs problem is not difficult at all. You don’t need to be a garage expert or call a repair professional to diagnose this problem. Simply check the springs, and if you find any broken springs, you can then call the repairman and get it to fix immediately.
Worn-out Cables
Just like springs, garage doors use a cabling mechanism to pull up or lower the door. If any of the cables get damaged, the garage door system will stop working properly. The good thing is troubleshooting the damage cables problem is easy, and you can use your visual inspection to do that. Once done, call the repairment to replace the cable.
Door Travel Limits
If your garage door won’t close all the way, one of the reasons can be the door travel limit issue. In the majority of the home garage systems, there is the default setting that allows the door to close to a specific limit. This limit is set during the garage door installation. However, there is the possibility that your door travel limit settings get slowly drift away from the standard settings over time.
See, if the door travel limit is too high, your garage door won’t close all the way down, and if it’s too short, the garage door will hit the floor whenever you close it. So, setting the right garage door travel limit is crucial. Some garage door systems have different features like knobs or a machine that handles the door travel limits.
Tracks Blockage
Lastly, if everything is fine and the garage door still won’t close all the way, the tracks are responsible for it. If the tracks have any blockage, it can cause the garage door to be warped or bent down, which results in improper closing. However, by removing the blockage from the track, you can get your garage door back to work. Remember, it’s only possible if you’ve discovered the problem in the early days because if there is a significant blockage, you may need a track replacement.
Bottomline
As you’ve read all the reasons and ways to fix the garage door problem, you can notice that you can fix the majority of the problem on your own. However, we still advise you to get professional help because some issues should be better left to the experts to save time and money, especially if they involve a mechanism you don’t know completely.