Has your garage door recently stopped working and is now stuck open or closed? Are you trying to figure out how to get your garage door to work once again? Having a broken garage door can be an extremely frustrating experience but it's something that happens to many people. Unfortunately, the mechanisms behind garage doors are such that they aren't easily fixed by the average person. However, there are things you can try that may, at least temporarily, allow your garage door to function once again.
Clean the sensors: One of the easiest garage door repairs that you can attempt is to clean off the optical sensors on either side of the garage door. These can become obscured by dust, cobwebs, small leaves, and other similar debris. When obscured, the garage door perpetually thinks that an object is under the door and will refuse to close. Cleaning these sensors when dirty can help to restore the door to working order. If cleaning the sensors doesn't help, the sensors may have been bumped or jiggled out of alignment. You can try to realign them yourself, but you may want to opt to have a professional do this to avoid frustration.
Lubricate the mechanism: If your garage door is stuck closed, the issue might be that the motor and/or the track needs to be lubricated. This is something that should be done on a regular basis, but is often neglected. Your garage door manual should have information on what sort of lubrication to use, where it should go, and how much you should add. If you don't have the manual or if lubricating the relevant parts doesn't seem to have any effect, then you'll need to call in a professional who specializes in garage door repairs to take a look.
Tighten screws: Over time, the screws that hold the garage door track in place can become loose, causing the track to become misaligned. This is especially true if the previous homeowner did the garage door installation on his or her own and didn't secure the track properly. Tightening these screws can fix the misalignment issue and allow the garage door to open and close smoothly once again. If the track is still misaligned afterward, you may be tempted to try to get it into place by hitting it with a hammer or something similar. Actually doing this can result in damage to your garage door assembly so it's better to simply have a professional fix the issue.
For more information, contact local professionals like those found at J & R Garage Door Company Inc.
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