How To Tell If You Need Garage Door Repair or Replacement

How To Tell If You Need Garage Door Repair or Replacement

When owning a home there are many things that can go wrong. Sometimes the issues can be with something inconvenient such as your garage door. If your garage door is broken, chances are you’ll need to address this immediately. Allowing your garage door to go unrepaired can deny access to your vehicles, leave your garage open to the elements and, in a worst case scenario, leave you open to potential theft.    Here are a few ways to tell whether your garage door needs to be repaired or if there is a full replacement in your future. The Problem: Garage Door Does Not Open or Close In most cases, garage doors don’t open or close due to something blocking the track, a faulty connection between the control panel and the door, or there are batteries that need to be replaced.    The first thing you’ll want to address is the battery issue. Check both the transmitter on the wall and on the ceiling to ensure both have fresh batteries. Also, check the track to see if anything has lodged itself inside and is preventing the door from moving.    Lastly, you’ll have the connection issue. For this issue you’ll need to call a garage door repair technician. They will have the tools necessary to view the connection between each device to determine the issue. The Verdict: None of these issues typically lead to a full on garage door replacement and are easily repaired by an experienced technician. The Problem: Garage Door Is Jammed If your garage door is jammed into an awkward position something may have happened with the alignment of your track. The weight of the garage door can take a toll on the rails after a while and this issue can develop organically. When your garage door’s track is out of alignment it can cause serious damage to the door itself. You’ll want to call a repair technician right away if you are experiencing this issue, as your door might be at risk of falling off the track completely. This can result in costly damage not only to the garage door itself, but also to personal property you may have inside the garage. The Verdict: Garage doors can be un-jammed by fixing the track and re-aligning the door. However, there are cases where the damage to the track or door is too much to maintain integrity and functionality. In this case the system will need to be replaced. The Problem: Garage Door Closes Partly, Then Opens Again It can be annoying to watch your garage door get almost to the bottom and open all the way again. You’re ready to leave or close the door for the night but you’re worried that something might get stolen because your garage door doesn’t want to shut. The Verdict: While this can be an frustrating issue it doesn’t have to mean you need to replace the door. Typically what causes this to happen is a faulty photo eye sensor. The solution to this is a pretty simple one. Check the area at the opening of your garage for any items that may be obstructing the photo eye sensor. Even the smallest obstruction can prevent the door from closing. If you’ve checked the area and see nothing blocking the sensor then it may be dirty or misaligned.   The good thing about a faulty sensor is you won’t have to replace the whole door just to repair the sensor. The bad thing is it’s an easy fix and may not feel like it’s worth your money to have a repair technician come out. The Problem: Garage Door Opens & Closes Randomly Quite a few people experience this issue, believe it or not. When they call the repair technician the first thing the technician asks the customer to do is locate all remotes to the garage door. This ensures there isn’t a remote hiding somewhere with it’s button being pushed. If that doesn’t solve the issue they check both transmitters to see if either are jammed in a open/close position.   Then there’s the matter of frequency. If your neighbor’s garage door opener is on the same frequency as your garage transmitter they may be opening your garage along with their’s. Your repair technician will be able to test this theory and place you on a different frequency from your neighbor to avoid the situation from happening again. The Verdict: There is often a simple and easy solution to this issue. There shouldn’t be a need to replace anything other than a faulty transmitter or remote. The Problem: The Garage Door Opener Runs, Door Doesn’t Open This issue is common in garage doors as there can be a couple of problems with the door and the parts that make the door function. First, you should check the door’s springs. The torsion springs are what allows for the heavy lifting of the garage door. If one or both of the springs are broken then the garage door opener may struggle to lift the door.    You can also try checking the track for obstacles. On occasion, items or dirt may get lodged inside the track and this can prevent the system from functioning as it should. Lastly, and most commonly on older garage doors, you’ll want to make sure the door didn’t accidentally get locked. If it did, unlock the door and it should function as intended. The Verdict: There are easy solutions to this issue. Removing the obstacles from the track and ensuring the door is unlocked are easy to do yourself. For the torsion springs you’ll need to hire a garage door repair technician. They will know exactly how to work with these springs as they can be dangerous to handle yourself.    — — Sources: https://homeguides.sfgate.com/adjust-photo-eye-garage-door-30374.html ShutterStock Image: 275509898