Garage Door Openers Checklist

My opener stopped working about a month ago.. it hums so we open it manually. Tonite I locked it with the side lock. My son went out to open it
without realizing the lock was latched.
He forced it open and now it's a mess. It looks like the track is slightly bent on the side (left facing from outside)same side as the lock. When you try to pull it down manually - it goes down crooked(left side facing from outsidelower than right side facing from outside - but afraid to pull it all the way down -I just went halfways. I noticed there is a tiny break in the middle of the very top of the garage door. NOw what??

Phyllis,
Time to call in a professional. It is non-negotiable. Try to fix that mess at your own PERIL.

I have bought an older home with an automatic garage door opener and the instructions are long gone. Can you tell me a generic method of lubricating (with what and where)?

Thanks for your help
Sharon

Sharon,
Use a 5W oil an put it on all moving parts. Manufacturers often have .pdf versions of owner's manuals at their websites. Even old models!

Mr. Carter, as of today both my wife's and my garage door remotes did not work to open or close our door. It does still open and close manually from the inside switch. New batteries have been tried but to no avail. The unit is pretty old. What could be wrong? Thanks!

Nevermind! After doing some fiddling, we discovered that apparently the lock switch on the unit had been inadvertantly turned to the "on" position and that's what was causing it. Who knew? Sorry!

Our garage door opener seemed to by lifting the door unevenly. It would go up a few inches and stop. We had to repeatedly push the button to get it open even half way. My husband thought it was the springs and replaced them. But that did not seem to solve the issue. What now?

Tia,
How about getting out the Owner's Manual for the opener and looking at the part that talks about the tension adjustment?

I have 3 garage door openers. Suddenly one stopped working. I tried a new battery, and still no luck, all others work fine. Any suggestions? Thanks

Melinda,
It could be any number of things. A power issue at the opener, the remote could be bad, etc. Open your Owner's Manual and start reading the Troubleshooting Section.

My garage door remote control will open the garage door from the outside , but will not close it from the outside. What could the problem be?

Glenda,
It could be any number of things. Change the batteries and see what happens.

After a recent stretch of below zero temps, my garage door stopped working. When the button is pressed it goes up about 2 feet then back down. The same is true for the wall button and remotes. Any thoughts?

Matt,
Look in the owner's manual about adjusting the tension in the opener. There is a screw you need to turn one way or the other.

Mr. Carter, after a heavy rain and falling temperatures last night, my garage door is frozen tight to the concrete slab. The door faces north and temperatures today are in the single digits; any suggestions to get me to the office? :-)

Debbie,
This probably will get to you late. Somehow you need to leverage the door up to break the ice seal. Trying to melt the ice will be futile as it will refreeze before you get from one end to the other.

The next time you have a forecast like that of yesterday, hold the garage door up one-half inch overnight.

Our garage door only opended the door 3/4 the way then stopped. Upon inspection, the middle top of the door has a small rip and is bending. All hardware seems to be secure, no bolts loose, but I didn't want to touch the spring; could it be worn out? Is this something that can be repaired, or will the door have to be replaced? (The door and opener are only a few years old.)
Thank you!

Krystina,
You need to call in a pro. This sound pretty serious from your description.

I have a genie garage door opener. It works fine for opening the door, but the closing dosen't work right. Sometimes it will close partially and then open again. Theres nothing blocking the electric eye detector, and it isn't hitting anything on the way down. I set the down force to the max and the problem still occurs intermittantly. Any suggestions?

I have an old Chamberlain garage door opener that I have retrofitted to a scissor jack. I have taken off the limit switch leads thinking this would let it run continuously but it stops before the jack is fully raised. I believe it is in the encoder. Please give me the information on how to defeat the encoder so that the opener will run continuously.

Eric,
The openers often have tension adjusting screws in the motor area. Get out your manual and see how to readjust them.

I just purchased a new house that has a working electric garage door. While I was moving stuff into the new house, one of my friends who was helping me with the move accidentally closed the garage door manually, now it’s stuck/locked. Do you think that this is something very easy to fix, or do I have to call a professional?. If the latter can you please tell me how much will it cost to fix?, roughly.

Thanks
Aziz

Hello,

I just purchased a new house that has a working electric garage door. While I was moving stuff into the new house, one of my friends who was helping me with the move accidentally closed the garage door manually, now it’s stuck/locked. Do you think that this is something very easy to fix, or do I have to call a professional?. If the latter can you please tell me how much will it cost to fix?, roughly.

Thanks

Aziz,
They probably just rotated the handle that locks the door. Rotate that handle so the long bars are not engaged in the track.

We have a craftmen garage door opener. After 2 years from install, we now have the problem of it not retracting. The motor is turning (sound) but the chains are not moving...what adjustments can I do - ensure track is free of snow, greased, now what? Please help!!!

Ray,

I had a similar problem last year. Inside my unit there was a nylon spur gear that drove the chain. Over the years, the gear wore away until there were no more teeth on it. The motor would run, but there was no way to transmit the movement to the chain. Check inside the cover to see if you have a worn gear.

My garage door opener won't open. It just makes a humming sound. It is as probably as old as the house (15-20 years). Worth fixing or should I just get a new one installed? We will be living here for the next 20-30 years.

Ben,
I think it is safe to say that opener has reached the end of its useful service life.

Mr. Carter,

My garage door opener is a Genie Model 450 from 1977 and has worked flawlessly for years. I decided to go green and put in two small watt screw in floresent lights and the unit started moving( the lights did not come on). Now I can move the door up with any remote or wall switch but it willnot go down. We have to uhlock the screw and manually lowr the door. Any thoughts?

Thanks,

David,
Put back in the old bulbs and see what happens.

I am replacing an old garage door opener with a new one. I wish to just replace the opener and use the existing rail. I do not want to use the motion detectors. I have no kids at home, can I bypass this some way?

Hi,

I purchased a home with a Genie Pro 1/2 HP Screw Drive garage door opener. Today the door stopped closing by remote, or by the door panel control. I can only close the door manually. I looked all over for door safety devices but can't find any. I also checked the online manual, but the safety beam devices aren't where they should be based on the manual photos. I don't believe the door has any. Any ideas on why the door won't close? I haven't used the door remote in months, since the battery died. I only use the remote that's part of my car's rear view mirror.

Recently our garage door broke after only a little under 2years, it will not go up and down any longer. The panels are all warped(bent) which is why it won't go up and down any longer. I have to push the panels in order to make the garage go down because the panels are so bent. From what I can tell the problem stems from where the garage opener's arm connects to the garage door. The arm ripped out the metal piece that connects to the garage door and arm. It also bent the top of the garage severly.

I had a professional look at it and he said it was because the rail was not level and that I should talk to the installer because it was a bad installation to see if they can do something for me. I then had the original installer come out to look at it and he said it was installed correct and that the rails doen't have to be level. He tried to blame the damage on the on the garage door opener because it was set to 9 but shouldn't they have checked that when they installed my door? I then told him regardless of if it was set on 9 if the rails were installed correctly there shouldn't be a problem. He then looked around and said the garage door hit something on the way down and because the openers force was set to 9 it caused the door to continue to go down and keep hitting something. I then asked him why there was no signs of damage on the bottom of the door. You would assume if the door was hitting something it would damage the bottom rubber piece of the door at the very least. I then asked him to give me a write up of what he thinks happened but he refused and blamed me for the damage.

I'm just very frustrated because the rails are not level and the company that installed it is saying it is ok for the rails to not be level and it is not the cause of the problem. My garage door probably gets more useage than the average garage as we usually don't use the front door and just go through the garage door. I would estimate it goes up and down 10-20 times a day in the summer. So would an unlevel rail be able to cause this damage? What kinds of damage can an unlevel rail cause?

My 2 Sears garage door openers are 12 years old and work fine except if the door is not opened for a while, say overnight, it jerks hard then opens. If I close it right away and reopen it, it opens normally without jerking.
The chain droops as per the manual and I've tried changing the force settings but no luck.
Any ideas ?

My garage door opener opens when the car door or tailgate is opened. It also sometimes opens all by itself. This is an intermittent problem, lasting for a couple of weeks, then
working right.

Hi:
My Genie Garage door opener works just fine to open the door, but the problem is when I close it.

Once closed it immediately reopens. What can I do to fix this problem ?