We all love our garage doors. They open and close at just the push of a button and give us a nice, big walkway to enter our home through. Many people even prefer this method to using their actual front doors. In fact, the average American opens and shuts their garage door approximately 1,500 times a year!
And whether behind that door is a car, boxes of old photographs, or your ski gear, you want those items to be protected and your garage door to always be working properly.
There are two types of garage doors. They are mechanical and photoelectric. In this blog, we’ll be covering photoelectric garage doors and, more specifically, garage door sensors.
What are Safety Sensors?
Starting in 1993, it became federally mandated that all photoelectric garage doors be installed with safety sensors.
These safety sensors are there to make sure that your garage door never comes down and closes on either your property or another person. Garage doors are heavy objects and can weigh hundreds of pounds. You want to be sure that it is going to open and close properly every time so that you will avoid any sort of dangerous situations.
When a person or object is in the path of a closing door, the garage door lights will flash and the door will automatically reverse, opening instead of closing. As a safety precaution, if the sensor for some reason is not working correctly, it will then also open, even if there is nothing blocking the door’s path.
Because of this, you should never neglect problems related to your garage door. When a garage door is not working properly, it can act erratically. This will leave you frustrated and expose your garage and the valuables inside to the outside world. Fixing your garage door sensor should always be a top priority.
How Do Sensors Work?
For garage door sensors to work, electricity must be converted into an infrared beam of light. The light travels from a sending unit on one side of your garage door, which is about 2 to 6 inches above the ground. It is transmitted to a receiving unit on the other side of the door. When a connection is made, the door moves.
When the light traveling between the safety sensors is interrupted, it will not close because it cannot tell if an object is in the door’s path or it will mistakenly assume that the path is being blocked.
If the safety sensors should somehow become misaligned, the infrared light will not be able to properly move from the transmitter to the receiver. If this happens, the light on your sensor will flicker in order to alert you that there is a problem. Sometimes, instead of flickering light, it will either be dim or completely off.
You can override the system and force your garage door to close. To do this, you must hold the open/close bar on your control panel until it shuts.
Causes of Sensor Problems
Often, the sensors become misaligned simply because they have become loose and then moved slightly. This can occur from opening and closing the garage door many times. The vibrations from the door can jostle the sensors out of alignment.
Another issue can be that the sensors have become dirty. The dirt can be blocking wholly or partially the infrared light beams from making their way to the receiving unit.
DIY Fixes
First and foremost, be sure that you avoid fixing the sensor in direct sunlight. The rays from the sun can affect the infrared sensors and make it difficult to tell if it is actually fixed or not.
Next, clean the garage door sensor with a cloth to remove any dirt and smudges.
To realign the sensors, you will want to loosen the wingnut on the receiving sensor. Gently move the sensor until its light glows steadily and is no longer flickering. Once it is aligned, tighten the wingnut.
Call the Professionals
Sometimes, fixing the sensor takes more than just a simple jiggling around to get your garage door working properly again. For example, you may have a pinched wire on your hands. If this is the case, your garage door sensors will act finicky and inconsistent. And this is not something that you should repair on your own.
Here at Speedy Garage Door Repair, we have the tools and expertise needed to fix any garage door issue. Contact us today and we will be happy to come by and give you a free quote! Feel free to give us a call at (415) 494-4472 or email us at office@speedy-garage-door.com.
