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Nothing feels more disempowering than to come home and discover that your garage door won’t open. Worse, you try to leave for work and learn how the door won’t close.

That’s problematic because of how anyone could enter your garage if you leave it open. Criminals might take it as an opportunity to slip inside and work on the door to your home quietly since it isn’t out in the open. What causes a garage door opener won’t open or close?

Blocked, Dirty or Misaligned Photo-Eye

Luckily, this doesn’t require much effort on your part to fix. You can clean the photo eye of the sensor to improve the signal.

Remove the obstruction, and this will usually resolve the problem. If not, you may have another issue with your garage door opener. Check to see that the signal works on both ends.

In some cases, electromagnetic fields can interfere with radio waves. Electromagnetic fields can come from home appliances, airports or even a lightbulb.

Most garage doors manufactured after the 1990s included the photo-eye as a safety feature because of how small children would play around garage doors and suffer an injury.

Garage Door Opener Won’t Open

It sounds incredibly simple like no one could make a mistake like this, but plenty of people tried their garage door opener won’t open or close and didn’t realize it was a dead battery.

Pay attention as well because the activation must come from both ends. If one doesn’t work, the other one won’t work either.

You can tell what battery has expired by trying to open the garage door with the opener. If it opens without the remote, it means the batteries in your opener have died.

Garage door opener won’t open or close battery should last one to two years. How long it lasts will depend on your usage and how well you take care of the opener. Consider a garage door opener replacement battery if this happens.

Poorly Adjusted Sensitivity

In particular with this problem, pay attention if it seems stuck in the closed position. This commonly happens with newly installed garage doors because the opener may still have an arbitrary factory setting on it. This often happens when it doesn’t suit the garage door.

The sensitivity settings will let the door know how much force it needs to open the garage door. With misaligned settings, the opener will either think that the door is too lightweight and not use enough force, or it will think of it as too heavy for the weight allowance of the opener.

Out of Range or Blocked Remote Signal

If you press the button and the door doesn’t open, it could be one of two things. First, this could happen because of the remote being out of range.

How far an opener will work depends on the brand, but most garage door remotes work best at 50 feet or less. That offers enough range to where it works when you pull up into your driveway, but it won’t open the garage door on your way to work without you knowing about it.

Check to see that nothing the signal between the remote and the opener. Obstructions can interfere with the signal keeping the door closed.

Common things that can interfere with the signal include:

  • Tree branches

  • Traces of dirt

  • Wireless interference

  • LED lights

In some cases, something may have broken the antenna. You will need to call a garage door technician for cases like that.

Deactivated Motor

You may, in fact, have nothing wrong with your garage door because the issue stems more from a disconnected motor. Sometimes this happens because of the motor switch getting pulled from a cord that connects to it.

This disables the motor, but luckily, it doesn’t require a phone call to Cherry Hill Garage Door. You can flip the switch back on to reactivate the motor.

Accidentally Hit Lock Mode

Holding the button down for several seconds on the remote can activate lock mode. This feature exists with some garage door opener won’t open to add extra security. Once the door enters lock mode, it won’t open with a simple press of the button. You can unlock the door by holding the garage door button down for several seconds again.

The Opener Has a Stripped Gear

The stress from daily activities can impact the gears on your garage door opener. You will recognize this has happened if you hear a humming noise coming from the garage door but nothing happens.

While you can replace a stripped gear in some cases, you will often need to replace the opener altogether. Openers range in price from $218 to $511. You will need to call a professional about this problem.

Limit Setting is Misadjusted

You will spot this problem easily enough because the garage door will touch down as it closes, but it will immediately go back up. The programming within lets the garage door know how much movement it needs to operate.

This accommodates for the height and size, but when you have the settings too high, it will think that the door closed prematurely. Having a technician do this one is best.

If you’re experiencing any problems with your garage door opener won’t open or close, call Cherry Hill Garage Door in Cherry Hill for garage door repair. We have the expertise to help.

Garage doors can be technologically complex, and you don’t want to work on this yourself because of the dangers. With all garage door problems, you want to resolve them as quickly as possible because they may be dangerous or it may leave the security of your home wide open.