Garage Door Does Not Close

It was late in the evening.  My wife had just come home.  The garage door did not want to close when she pressed the button on the remote.  It had worked just fine a few hours earlier.  My tools are in the garage.  Leaving it open all night is not an option.  

Step 1 Force it to close?

This is the hard wired switch on the wall.  She was able to make it close by holding the pressure plate on the switch down until it had closed.

Comments

[garagepro]

The problem that you have is a commend problem. and it's easy to fix it. You problem just need to adjust the sensors. And to make sure that both the lights are turned on. If that don't work and you need more help you and found the manual instruction in this web site.
http://www.burlingtoncountygaragedoors.com/

[Phil B]

I appreciate your information. If you look again at step 3 in this Instructable, you see I noted the LED on one sensor unit was bright, but the other fluttered weakly. In the last step you will notice that the reason for the weak and fluttering LED on one of the sensors was due to an oxidized connection where the control wires attach to the sensor.

[Tim Temple]

The instructions on my garage door say that entropy makes the door stiffer to pull up or down. The motor detects that as a problem and stops the door. Especially when it is getting cool.

Make sure nothing is breaking the electric eye. Disconnect the door from the opener with the lanyard. If the opener operates okay, look for two rheostats on the back of the motor -- one marked "up" and the other marked "down." Give the appropriate rheostat a slight clockwise turn and actuate the opener to reconnect it. That should solve the problem.

[nubie]

(removed by author or community request)

[nwait]

Hi PhilB

I'm not sure if my comment is in any way related to your problem, but might spare you some hassle later on.
Reading your statement that the door was too heavy and you couldn't let it down manually, means that your torsion springs are unbalanced. This also means that the door is also extremely "heavy" to open. All this relates to excessive loads on the garage door opener, which then can make it register an 'obstruction', making it either return open while closing, or remaining in a half open state while going up.
I suggest you have it seen too, so next time you encounter a contact problem you will be able to operate the door by hand. Easily, as it should be....- Remember, the door opener is there for convenience, not to operate as a weightlifter for faulty balanced doors. This is also unsafe.
Norman - Garage door installer - South Africa

[Phil B]

Norman,

Thank you for your comment and the information. Not many years ago one of the springs broke. We had professional service personnel replace the broken spring. I would have thought they would have adjusted the springs properly. Is it possible they did not?

[nwait]

Hi Phil

Yes it's possible for them to either have "underwound" the spring, installed the wrong spring in terms of weight to height ratio - springs are manufactured according to the door's weight and opening height ie. lets say your door weigh approx. 160 Kg's, then you would probably have on 2x springs of 90 kg ratio each to lift it up to 2.1m high door opening - this is so that the cables remain taught at opening height and not come off the drums because off becoming too slack. The other factor is that doors need servicing once a year. Springs loose tension as they are under strain while the door are closed, which it is 90% of the time - on average. this means that 90% of it's lifespan it's standing and loosening tension gradually. This needs to be adapted/tightened/serviced yearly. Over progression of time the springs become weak and are unable too lift the door.
Hope this helps.
Norman

[Phil B]

Norman,

Thank you. We should probably have the service guys out again. It has been more than a year, for certain.

[Poolshark152006]

You do realize that you are able to Open and Close the door manually by pulling the red string buy the garage door motor...

[Phil B]

I know about the red emergency release. I did pull the emergency release and quickly learned that this old wood door is so heavy and so heavily sprung that I would have needed several large helpers to bring it down and close it. Your suggestion might work well with a modern fiberglass and aluminum door. But, doing that still does not solve the problem of why the sensors would not let the door opener work. Service calls by garage door technicians are quite expensive, especially after hours. It is much better if a homeowner can follow a simple procedure like I outlined to troubleshoot the sensors and restore function in a relatively short period of time.

[Poolshark152006]

My response thought was you would be able to pull down for the night, then fix it in the morning...

[Phil B]

Thank you for the suggestion, but this door is too heavy. I would have needed a couple of guys to help. At least my wife did get it down by holding the switch.

[rimar2000]

Bravo, Phil. Most electronic and electrical failures are due to problems of contacts, especially in areas of low voltage circuit. My microwave oven has over 15 years, and I had to gut it twice to clean the contacts. It's amazing how always something rust, or sulfate, or dirty.

[Phil B]

Many home mechanics do not work on their own automobiles now because of the computer controls. But, as a professional mechanic on the radio stated, "Cars today still need air, fuel, compression, and spark." He encouraged home mechanics not to worry about the computer circuits, but to check the basic things that have always been important and are little or no different than before computers. One thing that could be added to that would be checking electrical contacts and connections for looseness or corrosion.

I was surprised that nothing was said in the helps for diagnosing a garage door opener problem about oxidation on contacts between the sensor and the wires leading to it.