Why Your Garage Door Will Not Close

When a garage door will not close, it is rarely the motor. Most of the time it is the safety sensors near the floor, and that is often a two-minute fix. Before you assume the worst, walk through the common causes below.

The safety sensors

Every modern opener has two small sensors mounted a few inches off the floor on each side of the door. If the door starts down and then reverses, or the opener light blinks and it will not move at all, the sensors are the first suspect. Look for:

• A sensor knocked out of alignment, so the two are no longer pointed at each other
• A dirty or fogged lens (wipe it gently with a soft cloth)
• A cobweb, leaf, or box breaking the beam
• A loose wire at the sensor or the opener

The tracks and rollers

If the sensors are clean and aligned and the door still binds partway, the problem may be the tracks or rollers. A door that has drifted off its track, a bent section of rail, or a seized roller will stop a door from closing smoothly. Do not force it, since running the opener against a bound door bends more track and can snap a cable. That is a cable and roller repair.

The opener settings and the door itself

Openers have a down-force and travel setting that can drift over time and make a door reverse before it seats. And sometimes the door will not close because the door is the problem: a broken spring makes a door too heavy for the opener to seat properly. If the simple checks above do not solve it, opener repair is the next step, or call the shop and we will diagnose the real cause before quoting a fix.