Six Things To Know About Garage Door Sensor Repairs

Your garage door sensor is an essential component of your automatic garage door. The sensor is responsible for preventing a garage door from closing if there is an obstruction beneath it. Therefore, the sensor is important for ensuring safety.

Sensors have been required by law on automatic garage doors for decades.

Garage door sensors are more than just a nice feature that consumers like. In fact, sensors have been required on garage doors since 1993. The United States government recognized the potential danger of automatic garage door accidents and therefore mandated approved safety devices such as sensors on all garage doors to prevent injury. 

The fact that sensors are required by law highlights their importance. Homeowners definitely shouldn't try to delay garage door repairs because of sensor malfunctions or they could create a significant safety hazard on their home. 

Dust over your sensors could cause a garage door to malfunction.

There are some minor issues that could temporarily cause a sensor malfunction. For one thing, dust over a garage door sensor could cause the sensor to detect an obstruction and not allow the garage door to close properly. 

When you're troubleshooting before calling for garage door repairs, you might try to dust off your sensors gently. This could remove dust and correct the problem. 

Garage door sensors commonly malfunction because of a power supply issue.

Another possible simple cause of a garage door sensor problem is a faulty power supply. When you're troubleshooting, you can check to make sure that wires bringing power to your sensor are still properly connected.

If your sensor is definitely being supplied with power but is not working, you should contact a garage door repair company for service. 

You need to be especially careful about closing your garage door if the sensor isn't working.

It's best to completely stop using your garage door until you get your sensor malfunction corrected by a garage door repair technician.

The best thing to do is to pull your vehicles out of your garage and park them in your driveway. Then, you can leave your garage door closed until your repair technician comes and fixes the problem. 

Alignment problems are a frequent cause of sensor issues.

Your garage door repair technician might be able to quickly correct the malfunction by simply realigning your garage door sensors. If the sensors on either side of your garage door become misaligned, the garage door will stop opening and closing properly.

Fortunately, alignment problems are generally simple for garage door repair technicians to correct. 

Garage door sensors require periodic replacement.

Like any other piece of equipment, garage door sensors will wear out over time and require replacement. If your garage door sensor is frequently malfunctioning, the best thing to do is to completely replace it. This way, you'll benefit from having new, updated equipment on your automatic garage door.  

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