Garage door won't stay closed

[mystang52]

My garage door immediately opens after it closes. It's a cold and dark Sunday night, so there were limited things I could do to try and diagnose the problem....to no avail. I searched Youtube and tomorrow will see if there is a loose wire.

What I apparently can confirm is that the safety "eye" is synched correctly. Does anyone here have expertise in this and can give me any tips, before I call in a contractor to fix?

 

[MRG]

No, but I have the same problem. Last week we came home and our door had bounced open. We were relieved to see our little dogs hadn't opened the inside door to escape in the cold.

Really appreciate the thread and discussion.

 

[NW-Bound]

All garage door openers have travel limit switches, one at each end of travel. It's so the motor knows when to stop in either direction.

Opener motors also have torque limit switches. It's so they will reverse to avoid grinding into obstacles.

The above switches are all adjustable.

What I suspect is that the travel limit switch in the close position is out of adjustment, or malfunctions. The motor then does not stop when it should, and jams the door into the ground. When the torque limit switch activates, the motor reverses and reopens the door.

PS. If the torque limit is set too low, or the springs are not adjusted properly to balance the weight of the door, the motor may reverse before the travel limit is reached.

 

[ERD50]

+1 to NW-Bound's post. Also, in a cold climate (not sure how 'cold' you meant, it helps to have a location on your posts), frost can raise the floor under the door, creating this problem (limit switch adjustment needed).

I've also had spider webs, leaves and such, or some loose door gasket at the bottom interfere with the light beam, causing it to return back up. So check the beam is clear, and the limit switches.

Or cats/dogs/critters running out at the last second

-ERD50

 

[Scrapr]

quick fix...well 2 of them. First I can press the door button from inside the garage and hold it until closed. I don't believe this will work on your car remotes. I have done this because our "eye" gets knocked with a broom or whatever. 2nd you can release the door with the red rope (emergency release) and then pull down the door. So your door will be closed but not locked. If that is an issue put a pair of vice grips on the side rail.

Our door will do this for a day or 2 and then just heal itself somehow

double check your electric eyes though. That is usually our issue

 

[Jerry1]

Agree with NW-Bound, however, check your garage door springs and rollers carefully. You don’t want to put more force on the door to try to compensate for something that has broken. Could be as simple as ice clogging the track at the bottom of the travel of the bottom roller.

 

[RetiredAt55.5]

All garage door openers have a manual (emergency) rope that you can use to close the door manually. It's usually near the top of the door, and about a foot away from the door. Look for a rope/cord with maybe a little handle. When you pull this rope, it will disengage the door from the opener and then you can manually raise/lower the door. Obviously, be careful lowing the door slowly. It is very easily to re-engage this cord by just using the door opener again - it should snap back into the locked position.

Other things to look out for - if you have a stone driveway, look for a rock on the ground where the door closes. That might be enough to engage the safety reversing mechanism (ask me how I know that).

Also, newer openers have a infrared mechanism (a beam) that prevents the door from closing if it thinks there is something in the path of the door closing. If the transponder or receiver is misaligned, that will prevent the door from closing. On mine, when it was misaligned, it would stop the door from closing immediately (so the door would only go down a foot or so before it would reverse and open again).

If the door is moving all the way to the bottom, and then reversing and opening again, it is probably an issue with the adjustment for the closure sensitivity (a separate safety mechanism that engages when the opener thinks the door is closing on something).

 

[Chuckanut]

Your safety eye is out of alignment or the door hardware is loose causing vibrations throwing the light beam off

 

[omni550]

I had a large trash bin that was placed a bit too close to the garage opening that prevented the garage door from staying down. The door would start to close, until it reached and touched the wide portion of the bin (the top portion of the bin has a wide lip) and it would then reopen.

I didn't realize this^ was the case. On departing, I was touching the garage door remote in the car, seeing the door start to travel downwards, and then pulling out of the drive and going on my merry way...only to return home later and see that the door was wide open. Initially, I thought there was some issue with limit switches or misaligned electric eyes.

I now have a tape line on the floor of my garage, showing the limit of how close I can place my trash bin to the door opening without impeding the closing of the door.

omni

 

[eroscott]

Your safety eye is out of alignment or the door hardware is loose causing vibrations throwing the light beam off

Nice succinct 2 points that I have experienced a few times.

a) I usually start by wiping the sensors eye. Test.

b) Rotate one slightly up and back (can use small level to check its current location). Test.

c) Do similar rotation with other side. I've probably done this 10 times over 18ish years. Probably vibration or change in temps causing them to move just 'enough'.

 

[Sunset]

I have had this when things were too close to the eye beam, or when cobwebs hanging from the bottom of the door were particularity thick.

Our house has the garage door power on a switch, so in this situation I could close the door and when it got to the bottom shut off the power. Of course that is less than perfect if the door does not completely close. Then see it in the morning.

 

[NW-Bound]

All garage door openers have travel limit switches, one at each end of travel. It's so the motor knows when to stop in either direction.

Opener motors also have torque limit switches. It's so they will reverse to avoid grinding into obstacles.

The above switches are all adjustable.

What I suspect is that the travel limit switch in the close position is out of adjustment, or malfunctions. The motor then does not stop when it should, and jams the door into the ground. When the torque limit switch activates, the motor reverses and reopens the door.

PS. If the torque limit is set too low, or the springs are not adjusted properly to balance the weight of the door, the motor may reverse before the travel limit is reached.

I forgot to say that the above mechanical switches are in addition to the remote infrared beam sensors mounted across the garage opening. The switches are at the body of the garage opener that houses the motor.

 

[Cobra9777]

DMIL's garage did this exact thing. I thought it was the safety beams out of alignment or light interference since it was an intermittant problem that seemed to get worse when direct sunlight was hitting the garage. I tried lots of goofy fixes I read about on the internet to circumvent light interference. Nothing worked. In the end, I bought a new set of safety beams (eyes) on Amazon for around $30 and problem was solved. She has a Genie system, so here's what I bought.

 

[wolf]

Have exact same problem. Not really a problem. Since easily solved. If you saved
the instructions for your garage door opener.

My model, was Genie. Has nothing to do with up/down limits. Nor the electric eye.

There is a "setting", that has to be reset. Sorry for not giving the exact wording, my
instructions are in the garage and it's late pm, now.

Page 5 or 6, need to push square button, look for purple, red, blue lights, etc....

If you lost your instructions, climb a foot ladder, get your make/model, etc,

Google. If lucky, you may find instructions online.....then just follow the directions.

good luck.

 

[jazz4cash]

I didn't see anyone mention the mechanical safety reverse system. This is different from the light sensing safety. If the door encounters resistance while closing, it will reverse and re-open. Mine has an adjustment on the door closer motor, but I've never had to actually adjust it other than when I replaced the belt. I test it in the spring by laying a 2 x 4 under the door and it should reverse when it strikes the object. Sometimes, especially when it first turns cold, the mechanical safety reverse will activate if the door is only open a foot or so when I push the button to close it. In that case I just let it open fully and and then close it. When I'm leaving home, I always double check my rearview mirror to make sure the door hasn't re-opened after closing.

See item #3 in the video:
https://video.search.yahoo.com/sear...=3367794b7414a29f5719d0bac50b9587&action=view

 

[NW-Bound]

I didn't see anyone mention the mechanical safety reverse system. This is different from the light sensing safety. If the door encounters resistance while closing, it will reverse and re-open. Mine has an adjustment on the door closer motor, but I've never had to actually adjust it other than when I replaced the belt...

This is the torque limit switch I talked about. The torque that the motor has to exert to move the door is reflected in the stretching of a spring whose tension is adjustable. When the motor has to work too hard, its higher torque causes the spring to overstretch, activating a contact switch which then tells the controller to reverse the motor rotation.

Note that the travel limit switch must also be correctly adjusted for the motor to stop right as the door reaches the ground. If the controller does not see the travel limit being reached, the motor will continue to run to drive the door into the ground. The torque limit is what prevents the stalled motor from burning out.

The same thing happens if the door hits an object that the photosensor does not see, or the opener or door mechanism has a binding or obstruction.

 

[NW-Bound]

When I installed the door opener, I adjusted the torque or force limit switches to just above the level needed to operate the door. The higher the force, the less safe it is in case the door closes on something that should not be there.

Later, in the winter, the cold caused the torsional door springs to stiffen, and the motor had to work harder to close it. The torque limit switch activated, and the door could not close as the motor reversed when it was near the end of travel.

I had to increase the torque limit a bit to allow for the above effect.

Different brands may have different ways of accomplishing the above functions, but all the garage door openers I have installed or worked on operated on the same principle.

 

[brucethebroker]

quick fix...well 2 of them. First I can press the door button from inside the garage and hold it until closed. I don't believe this will work on your car remotes. I have done this because our "eye" gets knocked with a broom or whatever. 2nd you can release the door with the red rope (emergency release) and then pull down the door. So your door will be closed but not locked. If that is an issue put a pair of vice grips on the side rail.

Our door will do this for a day or 2 and then just heal itself somehow

double check your electric eyes though. That is usually our issue

Well said, 1++

 

[marko]

My door does that same thing. Usually because there's leaves or frost where the door and floor meet.

What I do every winter is adjust the down travel so that the door mechanism stops about 5 inches before the floor. Then gravity takes over and the door coasts down on it's own for the last 5 inches to the floor. That way, if there's snow on the ground I don't have to deal with it. It still 'locks' properly but I'm less concerned about a hard-to-the-ground close than with having it not closing at all.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

Assuming the door is the roller type on rails, Possible Causes:

1) Safety Limit Switches interupted, these are the 2 located at the bottom of the rails by the floor, one on each side (Small Black Boxes). They are designed to interupt the door closing if someone walks in or out. They are LED / Infra Red and need to be lined up. They are easy to kick out of alignment by mistake.

2) Obstruction in the door closing creating stress on the motor. This could be debris in the rails, siesed rollers.

 

[spncity]

Don't ignore the suggestion of cleaning away all spider webs. They're not easy to see - except by the safety beam...

 

[NW-Bound]

If the IR photosensor fails or there's something blocking the beam, the door opener will refuse to close.

It is different than closing all the way very close to the ground, or even hitting the ground, before reversing. That was what the OP wrote.

One can just block the beam, and tests to see if the effect is different than when the beam works but something else causes the door to reverse.

My garage door immediately opens after it closes. It's a cold and dark Sunday night, so there were limited things I could do to try and diagnose the problem....to no avail. I searched Youtube and tomorrow will see if there is a loose wire.

What I apparently can confirm is that the safety "eye" is synched correctly. Does anyone here have expertise in this and can give me any tips, before I call in a contractor to fix?

 

[NW-Bound]

My door does that same thing. Usually because there's leaves or frost where the door and floor meet.

What I do every winter is adjust the down travel so that the door mechanism stops about 5 inches before the floor. Then gravity takes over and the door coasts down on it's own for the last 5 inches to the floor. That way, if there's snow on the ground I don't have to deal with it. It still 'locks' properly but I'm less concerned about a hard-to-the-ground close than with having it not closing at all.

Yes.

What tells the motor to turn off when the door is fully closed? It's not the photo sensor. It's the travel limit switch.

If the travel limit switch is set too low, its trigger comes too late or never comes. The door hits the ground while the motor continues to run. The higher torque causes the torque limit switch to trip, and the door reverses.

If your car bumper sticks out and gets hit by the door and the motor reverses, that is the torque limit switch doing its job, not the IR photo sensor. The photosensor is close to the ground, and does not see the car bumper.

In summary:

1) IR photo sensor is there to prevent the door closing when there's something interrupting the beam.

2) Travel limit switches are there to tell the controller that the door is either fully opened or closed.

3) Torque or force limit switches are what caused the motor to stop or reverse when there's some obstruction not seen by the IR photo sensor.

 

[Ronstar]

My workshop door went wacky in the summer and wouldn’t close. Tried adjusting the photosensors a few times to no avail. So I pulled the cord on it and haven’t got around to fixing it yet. I put a c clamp in the door track to lock the door shut. I think I bumped the photo sensors a few too many times. I’ll get at it in the spring.

 

[street]

Not the way to do it but I taped the sensor units together facing one another. Placed them in the rafters above the door. I just omitted them and have the door limit switch (down pressure) set light and if it hits something it goes back up. Might not be a good idea for most but the sensors were always in the way and then stopped working so I just omitted them..