Oh no! The garage door stopped working! It must be time to call a local Smyrna, GA garage door repair shop; right? Well, maybe not. Our Smyrna Garage Door Repair crew offers these helpful tips on what you should do first BEFORE you call a local garage door professional. Read on – you might just save yourself a service call and a little money!
You need your garage door to work right!
There’s no doubt about it. Your garage door is a vital part of your home or commercial building. It guards one of the largest rooms at your location. We use our garages for storage, car parking and access to our homes. A poorly or non-working garage door leaves your home vulnerable to uninvited intruders, vagrants, squatters, potential burglars or home invaders. It also allows your neighbors or anyone else driving down your street to potentially see what is inside your garage space or that part of your building is in disrepair.
Imagine putting in a hard day at work. You’ve dealt with cranky customers, oppressive bosses, and traffic headaches all day. Now, you just want to come home and relax for a bit so that you can recharge. One problem; your garage door is not working right. While your first inclination might be to call a local Smyrna, GA garage door professional, give these quick tips a try and see if these help.
Safety sensors
These are also known as photo electric safety eyes and they play a vital role in your garage door’s performance. If your safety sensors are not aligned properly your garage door remote won’t work and neither will your outside keypad control. These sensors are designed with your safety in mind. That’s why they won’t allow your garage door to operate if the beam does not connect. Let’s say you attempt to close your garage door but your toddler or puppy runs underneath it at the last moment. The last thing you want is for your several hundred pound garage door to hit anyone or anything underneath. Thanks to your safety sensors, it won’t. When the beam is interrupted, the door reverses course and goes back up.
If however, the beams are not aligned, this has the same effect. You can push the remote button all you like and to your sensors, it is the same as having the beam interrupted, but on a continued basis. What can you do about it? Your sensors are easily aligned by moving them in their brackets gently so that the beam connects from one sensor to the other. While you are at it, check for spider webs, yard leaves and other debris that may have blown in that can block your sensor lenses. Keep bicycles, trash cans, garden tools and other items away from your sensors. These can lean against them or fall on them and cause them to become misaligned. While you are inspecting your safety sensors, also look out for cut, frayed or chewed wires that will certainly interfere with your garage door’s performance.
Remote battery
Batteries lose their charge with time and use. This is true for the battery in your remote, too. We recommend testing your battery to see if it is still good. Do you have a battery tester at home? If so, use it to see the condition of your remote battery. If not, simply take your battery to any local Smyrna, GA retail store that sells them and they should test it for you at no charge. Some of the national chains that do this complimentary testing include Best Buy, Target, Sears, Home Depot, Wal-Mart and Lowes. Also, your battery may be good but the terminal that holds it in place may be loose. Be sure to check to see if it still holds. These are easy to adjust by simply squeezing them together.
Manual lock
Sometimes garage door failure can be traced back to one simple thing; the manual lock. These locks are easy to purchase and to apply. They are also easy to forget so if you or someone in your household attaches one to the inside track of your garage door, remember to remove it when not needed or at least tell the other family members or roommates about it. Plenty of opener motors have become burned out as well as garage door damage by trying to open a manually locked garage door.
Path blockage
Did your garage door start to go down and then suddenly go back up? Did you try to close your door again and this action was repeated? You might be left wondering just how you are going to retire for the night or leave for work in the morning if your garage door won’t close. This problem is related to and very similar to the above paragraph about the safety sensors. In this case, the beam is not misaligned, there is simply something blocking its path. At first glance it may not seem that way. It could be something as small as a child’s toy or other small object. As long as the beam is interrupted, your garage door will not close and will start to go back up. Always be sure to keep the area around your safety sensors free of debris, tools, boxes or any other item that can block the path of your photo electric safety eye beam.
When to call in the troops!
Any and all of the above tips can save you both time and money. It only takes a moment to run through any or all of them. Why not save yourself some money and fix your own garage door problem? Now, if none of the above tips help, then by all means, call in a Smyrna, GA garage door repair pro. Even if you do, you’ll be able to tell your repair technicians what the problem is NOT. How do you know? Well, because your read our post and checked for yourself!
Article source here: GARAGE DOOR WON’T WORK; THINGS TO CHECK BEFORECALLING A PROFESSIONAL
