Troubleshooting Your Garage Door and When to Call A Professional

Having a garage door that won’t open or close properly is inconvenient and frustrating. Sometimes, all your garage door needs is a little troubleshooting to remedy the issue. Otherwise, when DIY troubleshooting doesn’t work, you know it’s time to call your local garage door company for help.

Dominator Waikato offers garage door repair services in Waikato and the surrounding areas. We’ve put together this list of ways to troubleshoot common garage door issues. If you try all the troubleshooting methods we share below with no avail, you can call us on 07 847 5527 for professional garage door services.

Troubleshooting A Garage Door That Won’t Open

If your automatic garage door won’t open or close, try the following methods to fix it:

• Make sure the opener is plugged in and there are no issues with the circuit breaker
• Check to see if your door is manually locked
• Replace the batteries in your opener or remote control

If you’re in an emergency and need to open your garage door that’s currently closed, go inside the garage and pull the manual release cord hanging from the motor. This will allow you to manually open the door.

Checking Your Safety Sensors

The photo-eye safety sensors are laser beams toward the bottom of your garage door track that prevent the door from closing when someone or something is underneath. If your garage door won’t close all the way or opens immediately after closing, there may be a problem with your sensors. Try the following:

• Clean any dirt from the sensors
• Make sure there are no objects in the sensors’ path
• Make sure the laser beams line up and the path is straight

Checking Your Springs

If your motor is running but your garage door won’t open or close, this could mean you have a broken tension spring. Springs often break due to wear and tear or rusting. If you suspect a broken spring, do not try to open the garage door or fix it yourself. Since springs are responsible for lifting your garage door, replacing them is dangerous if you’re not professionally trained.

Checking Your Garage Door Tracks

The final common cause of a failing garage door is that the door has fallen off its tracks. Your garage door moves along a set of tracks and rails. If the track is dented, bent or blocked, your garage door cannot move all the way up or down. Always call a professional to fix a broken track. However, you can help prevent broken tracks by regularly applying a garage door lubricant, especially if you hear a loud metal-on-metal scraping sound when your door moves.

When to Call A Professional

While you can handle small repairs on your own, when in doubt, you should always call a professional garage door company. Your garage door is a complex system that requires specialist knowledge and equipment to repair. Even if there are no immediate problems with your garage door, scheduling annual tune-ups with a professional can help prevent them from happening down the line.

Dominator Waikato can help with all your garage door repairs in Waikato and the surrounding areas. To schedule a service, us on 07 847 5527.