Garage Door Won’t Open? Here Are Seven Reasons Why.

Trying to Pull Garage Door Open
Your garage door is a wonderful piece of equipment. It lets you park your car within the safety and sanctity of a piece of your house. It’s a wonderfully sectioned off part that lets your car and your things be safe and secure. What’s better is that you can go in and drive out just by opening the automatic garage door. With the push of a button, you’re on your way.

Well, you should be. Not this time.

Now, your garage door won’t open. You can’t get out of your garage. It makes you late for work and it’s just plain irritating. If you’re stuck with a faulty garage door that won’t open, you can look at seven of the top reasons why.

spring icon

1. Broken Garage Door Spring
The spring is the most important tool for the garage. Without it, both automatic and manual garages would not work. For your garage to properly have its door lifted, a counterbalance is required. The spring provides that in several ways. While there are many different versions of garage doors, the two most popular versions use springs.

The first way, the extension spring method, contains a spring located in the back of the garage. The spring is able to recoil whenever the motor pulls the door up. When lowered, the spring is extended. With all that stress on the spring, this could make the spring shatter.

The second way, the torsion method, has a spring located right behind the door. The spring is connected to the bottom of the door, which helps lift the door when raised and can lock it in place. Like the extension spring, there’s a tremendous amount of stress placed on the spring every time the door is raised. It’s bound to snap at some point with that much pressure.

garage motor icon

2. Broken Garage Door Motor
If your spring looks okay, you might turn your attention to the motor. While the spring is bearing much of the weight through counterbalance, the motor is also exuding a lot of power lifting and lowering the garage door. On top of this are complicated electronics that are able to power a machine that lets you basically lift a wall in less than five seconds.

If your motor is out, make sure you contact a professional. While we would encourage you to check the electrics, it’s strongly discouraged. One needs the proper equipment in order to examine the true cause of a motor failure. If it’s a faulty connection, broken belt, or something else, it’s best to get one of our technicians to examine it.

remote battery icon

3. Broken Opener
If your garage door seems to be properly aligned and well-sprung, the issue could be stemming from the garage door opener itself. First, check the batteries. While this may seem obvious, it’s also a solution that is so simple, it’s easy to forget. A weak battery signal can render your door opener useless.

Also, make sure to invest in a quality garage door opener. This might involved buying the brand name, or purchasing long-lasting batteries to get optimal use and lifespan out of your remote control opener.

bent track icon

4. Bent Track
Your garage door rests on a track. If that track somehow gets bent, that means your garage door won’t open. When this happens, the track needs to be adjusted or replaced. This means potentially removing the door and replacing the track, which is outrageously difficult for non-professionals. Luckily, Austin Garage Door Solutions has seen this a couple time, so we have the technology to fix this.

Before your track bends irreparably, save yourself the time and money and check up on your track. Pay attention to the way your garage door raises. If it gets a bit jittery on its way up or down, make a note of it and contact someone immediately. The more stress that gets put on a problem point, the more the problem point becomes trouble.

icons sensor misalignment

5. Sensor Misalignment
Your garage door frame has sensors on both sides that detect if there is anything in its path before it closes. This is an important safety feature meant to prevent doors from closing on children, pets, or objects placed under the door. However, sometimes these sensors fall off balance from the door’s vibrations or being hit. This may be one of the explanations why your garage door won’t open.

Misaligned sensors are one of the most common reasons for a malfunctioning garage door. Realigning them is typically a quick fix. One easy way to find out if the sensors are misaligned is to tie each end of a long piece of string from one sensor to the other. Then, you can use a leveling tool to determine if the string (and therefore, each sensor) is level. If not, loosen one of the sensors and move it until the string is level.

Garage obstruction icon

6. Obstruction to Sensor
Over time, your sensors may collect dust, pollen, or dirt, especially if you frequently leave the garage door open. This can cause them to detect an object in its path and not completely close the door. If you have a door that starts to close but then reopens at the last moment, it’s likely that there is something in the sensors’ path. This can lead to complications that could explain why your garage door won’t open. Cleaning the sensor lenses periodically can prevent this from becoming a frequent problem.

gears icon

7. Worn Down Gear
Of course, if you’ve checked all of this and you still haven’t found the culprit, look at the garage in general. If your hear a grinding or squeaking sound coming from your garage door when you try to close it, it’s likely that there’s an issue with the mechanics. For starters, you could have a broken cable. There may also be some warping or bending in the door itself.

When issues like this arise, it’s difficult to accomplish a garage door repair on your own. It’s best to have these issues fielded by a professional, as they can be dangerous to tackle yourself and can worsen if troubleshooted improperly. This also has the added addition of assurance. Our technicians have dealt with a lot of things, so we can address your garage door just right.

If you’ve addressed all of these issues and your garage door won’t open still, it’s time to call the professionals. Our Austin Garage Door Solutions technicians are standing by to help you. Get your garage door repair experts on the case.

About the author