Garage door repair quick fixes
The garage door is stuck, it won’t close, and the door opener is broken. Anyone who has a garage door has run into one of these issues at one time or another. The best thing to do is to get a professional in to fix the problem, but they may not get there right away and things like the weather might require a quick, temporary fix until the professionals arrive. Here are a few, quick fixes for a garage door. Remember, though, that these are just temporary until the professionals arrive in most cases:
The Garage Door is Stuck – If the garage door is attached to an automatic door opener, then try to lift the door by hand. If the door can be closed or opened manually, then the issue resides with the automatic opener, itself, getting stuck. At this point, just open and shut it manually until a garage door repair company can stop it and fix the problem.
If, however, you find that the garage door is still getting stuck, even when moved by hand, then the issue is with the door, itself. A garage door getting stuck can be the result of a few different things:
First, the rail itself could be broken or bent. For a quick fix, putting some grease on a bent railing might just be enough to open and close the door until a garage door repair business can make a permanent repair. Careful use of a hammer might also just bend it back in shape just enough for the door to work again, but be careful not to do more damage than good!
Broken railings, however, require quite a bit of handiwork to repair and it’s best to let a professional handle the issue, unless you already have experience with soldering.
The other cause of a stuck garage door can also be caused by one of the pulleys or wires seizing up from an obstruction. You can look to see if something obvious is causing the obstruction. If it is an easy fix, then there’s no problem. For anything else more complex, however, it is best to wait for a professional from a garage door repair company as these wires and pulleys carry a fair amount of weight. If one snaps it can cause bodily harm.
The Garage Door Won’t Open – This is among the most common things to happen and it tends to have numerous possible causes. Some require little effort and some do need a garage door repair business to send someone in!
For those who have an automatic door opener, they have a kind of safety sensor now that emits a laser. If this laser is blocked, the sensor believes that someone or something is in the doorway and it won’t lower. If the eye is dirty, a simple cleaning will solve the problem. If the eye is damaged, however, then it’s time to call in a repairman.
Automatic doors also have a simple fix when they don’t open that happens all the time, but it’s also one of the easiest things to fix: it’s unplugged. Yes, it seems too obvious, but family members looking for a free outlet in the garage do this all the time. So, check to see if the door opener is plugged in, just in case! It’s also a good idea to see if someone locked the garage door, in which case, it also won’t open.
Oddly, enough the garage door could also be too sensitive. No, this doesn’t mean that you inadvertently hurt its feelings. If the door’s sensitivity is set too high or too low, then the door won’t open. This is a pretty easy fix, in that you just need to look up the automatic door’s manual to see how to adjust the sensitivity to a normal setting.
If at some point when last using the garage door opener you or the person driving the car heard a loud snap, then the door may not open because the springs have snapped. If you look for the springs and find they have snapped or find that the cables have snapped, then do not try to open the door and do not try to fix the problem, yourself. Get a garage door repairman in to take care of it.
The Garage Door Won’t Close – Many of the issues for a door not closing is the same for it not opening. For one, the garage door sensor may be blocked or dirty. If it’s damaged then, again, have a garage door repair company send someone in. The sensitivity of the door could be set too high, or there might be an obstruction on the tracks. The sensitivity can be adjusted with a little help from the garage door’s manual. Finally, if there are obstructions on the track, simply remove them and the door should work fine.
