When I bought my first home, I knew I was going to have to start maintaining different parts of the home to keep everything functioning properly. However, what I did not realize was that the garage door was one of these things. I decided to create this website because I had no idea how much maintenance a garage door needed and what types of maintenance. If you aren't cleaning your garage door tracks, checking for loose screws or oiling the tracks on a bi-monthly basis, I hope my website teaches you how to do this maintenance and the importance of performing it.
An automatic garage door is a valuable addition to your home in times of poor weather. You can emerge from your car safe and warm inside your own home with the weather shut out behind you. Garage doors, like any other mechanical item, can experience issues that thwart full functionality. One potential problem is a garage door that rises normally but no longer lowers.
There are a couple of potential causes for a garage door that will raise but not lower. Some of the fixes you can perform yourself, while others you should leave to a qualified garage door repair technician. But before you do anything, make sure the problem isn't dying batteries in your garage door remote.
Disconnected, Misaligned or Faulty Sensors
There are two different types of sensors on most garage doors that can impede closing if the sensors malfunction. Those sensors are the safety sensors and the pressure sensors.
The two work towards a similar purpose: prevent the door from closing on anyone or anything when it starts to come down. This is why the door won't come down until after your car is inside, for example. The sensors are vital for both the normal functionality and the safety of the door.
Sensors that have become misaligned, disconnected, or otherwise faulty can falsely tell the door that something is in the way even when the path is clear. Your door will still open properly since these sensors don't play a role in raising the door, but problems will begin when the door tries to close.
Call in a qualified garage door technician to check, recalibrate, or align your sensors, if needed. You don't want to perform this task yourself because a mistake could cause the door to slam down on a person or car or leave you with a door that still doesn't close.
Partially Blocked Track
When the garage door lifts up, the door slides up onto a track installed in the rack of the garage. The door then slides back down the track to close. A partial blockage or warped spot can allow the door to still open but block the door from closing.
You can check the track for blockages if you can manually close the garage door and gain a clear view of the track. Look for any stuck clumps of dust or debris such as branches or leaves and clear away anything you find. If you find an area where the track has become warped, call in a garage door technician like Garage Doors Of Naples Inc to replace the track before the track ends up failing.
Share3 January 2016
