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Garage Doors Repair Wizard

My Garage Door Will Not Close

Posted by Anthony Rutt at April 5, 2021

If your garage door refuses to close, there could be several reasons as to why this is happening. Your garage door is a mechanism that relies on different parts working together in unison so that it can be operated properly. This is especially true when you use a garage door opener as part of the system. If you are having difficulties, you may want to call a professional garage door repair company to inspect and repair the issue.

However, before you make the call, there are some things you can do on your own to identify the issue that is causing your garage door to stay open. What follows are a few tips that will help you locate the problem and take appropriate action if possible before calling a reputable garage door repair company.

Sensors

On each side of the opening just above ground level on the tracks are sensors or safety eyes that will stop the garage door from completely closing if something is blocking the beam that is being emitted. You may find that a stray object, a coating of dust, or other type of debris is fooling the sensors into believing that something is present under the garage door.

Start your inspection by removing any items that sit between the sensors and cleaning them to ensure that dust or debris has not collected on the surface. If that is the issue, your garage door should work normally. If not, check their alignment to ensure that they are transmitting a beam to each other. There should be an LED light on the sending sensor that is either yellow or orange. The receiving sensor will have a green LED light. If the lights are not on, check the alignment so that they do meet.

Troubleshooting Light: Your garage door opener will have a troubleshooting LED light to indicate issues that may be affecting the performance. You will need to consult with the garage door manufacturer or manual and check to see what, if any issue is affecting the opener that is relayed by the troubleshooting light. The lights may flash in sequence to indicate the issue.

  • Single blink: Disconnection of sensor wire
  • Two blinks: Shorted sensor wire
  • Four blinks: Misalignment of sensor eyes

Or, they may have up/down arrows, they will blink in a pre-set order if something is not correct.

  • One up/One down: Wires are broken, or sensor not installed
  • One up/Two down: Shorted or reversed sensor wires
  • One up/Four down: Obstruction or misalignment
  • Four up/Six down: Temporary obstruction or misalignment

Your instruction manual may have other LED light indications as to the cause of the sensor malfunction. For those who have garage door openers that use error codes instead of flashing lights, simply match the code with what is found in the manual to help narrow down the problem. You may find in some cases that wires have become loose. If that is the case, check all wire connections to ensure that they are strong and stable.

If the remedy is beyond your capability to address, then you may will want to call a professional garage door repair service.

Testing Sensors

If you cannot tell if the sensors are defective or there may be a break in the wire, you can test the sensors directly with the motor. You will need to remove the sending sensor from its bracket, which means disconnecting or cutting the wire about a foot from the end. The sensor actually has two wires, so you will need to be careful about pulling them apart, stripping the insulation, and connecting it directly to the motor itself. This means that you are removing the sensor with about a foot of wire attached and then connecting it to the appropriate place on the motor itself. The white wire should go into the white terminal while the other wire connects to the gray terminal.

The yellow or orange light of the sending sensor should turn on when you make the direct connection. If the LED light does not turn on, then the sensor itself is defective and will need to be replaced. If the light does turn on, then the sensor is working, and the issue may be with the receiving sensor. So, repeat the process for the receiving sensor by cutting the wire about a foot from the sensor itself, stripping the insulation, and connecting it to the appropriate terminals on the motor. If the green LED light does not activate, then you need to replace the sensor. However, if it does activate, then you need to perform one more test.

You will need to connect or twist together the white and darker strands of both the sending and receiving sensor until you have a single strand and do the same for the white wires from both sensors which means you wind up with two wires instead of four.  Connect the white strands to the white terminal and the white and black wires to the gray terminal.

At this point, hold up both sensors so that they “see” each other. If one or more lights do not turn on, you have a fault with the sensors and they will need to be replaced. However, if they are working, then the issue may be the wiring which leads from the motor down to the sensor locations along the track.

Checking the Garage Door Manually

If the opener and all related systems check out and your garage door is still not closing properly, a garage door off track scenario might happened. You should carefully disconnect the garage door opener and check the garage door manually to find any issues. It may be that an obstruction has found its way into the track, the track itself is becoming misaligned, the garage door cable snapped or another issue is affecting the performance of your garage door.

If you are still unable to locate the problem or if the issue is beyond your capacity to correct, call a reputable garage door repair company in Charlotte NC. They have the knowledge, experience, tools, equipment, and training to identify and correct the issue that is affecting your garage door.

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