Garage Door Opener Repair in Austin
Garage door opener repair in Austin, TX is especially tough when the heat reaches peak levels. Garage door openers have lots of small parts inside that put up with tons of wear and hot weather. Luckily, the parts inside the opener are often fixable or replaceable. In most cases, you won’t have to buy a brand new garage door opener.
What’s Inside My Garage Door Opener?
The opener works with your door’s carriage assembly to lift and lower it. Let’s take a look at some of the opener’s parts:
Circuit Board
It’s the electronic information hub of your opener. It’s located inside the opener’s housing. The board sends and receives functional information to the other mechanical parts inside the housing.
Main Drive Gear
This gear takes power from the motor and sends it to the carriage assembly, which lifts and lowers your garage door.
Motor
The motor sends the electric power it receives from the outlet to the main drive gear.
Worm Gear
The worm gear is a cylinder, called a worm, connected to a wheel with teeth. It connects the motor to the main drive gear to create lift.
Remember before you start troubleshooting to lower the garage door. A closed garage door is the safest and easiest way to look through the door’s parts. Always cut off power to your garage door opener. Since you’ll be exploring moving parts looking for the root of your problem, keep your hands and fingers out of danger by keeping electronics from their power source.
Why isn’t my garage door opener working?
Once your garage door opener is unplugged, narrow down the source of the issue by looking at the symptoms.
- Remote works, wall switch does nothing
- Wall Switch works, remote does nothing
- Remote and switch produce no movement or sound
- Opener is grinding
- Parts are moving, but the door doesn’t budge
- Motor keeps running after door is open
1. Remote Works, Wall Switch Doesn’t
It may be time for a new wall switch. Power surges can fry the electronics inside of wall switches. Ask yourself – have you recently gone through some inclement weather or the neighborhood transformer blew? It’s likely that your opener got overloaded and couldn’t handle the current.
Older wall switches just use two wires to complete a circuit that opens your door. Newer ones have locks and lights designed to work with your specific garage door. If your door is newer, you’ll need a replacement wall switch.
2. Wall Switch Works, Remote Doesn’t
It could be as simple as a bad battery or as complicated as a broken remote. Move your remote closer to the opener to eliminate the possibility of range issues. Also, check the antenna to see if it’s pointing down the way it should.
If the wall switch is working, the disconnect isn’t in the wall – but it might be in the opener. Make sure your remote has good batteries. If there’s any doubt that your batteries may not have juice, put in a fresh set. If your remote still doesn’t work, your technician can determine whether the receiver inside the opener is malfunctioning or if your remote has just had enough.
3. Neither the Remote Nor the Wall Switch Work
If your door is powered but not going anywhere no matter how you try to open it, your circuit board may need replacement. Circuit boards are often the victims of power surges. Just a moment of overload can render the electronics on your circuit board useless. If you can, keep your opener on a surge protected outlet.
4. Opener Makes a Grinding Sound
The main drive gear has probably seen its final days. As one of the most crucial parts of the garage door opener’s process, it is constantly at work. Drive gears are usually plastic and function together with the worm gear. They take heavy strain every time you open and close your garage door.
Once you hear the grinding, don’t try to force the door to open. Without the main drive gear taking on its workload, the other parts inside your opener become vulnerable. Contact a technician as soon as the grinding begins.
5. Carriage Moves, But the Door Doesn’t
Your trolley is most likely broken. The parts that move on the rails of your garage door carriage assembly work with precision. If the trolley loses even a little bit of its original shape, that precision is compromised. The best bet is to replace the trolley to correct any imbalance.
6. Garage Door is Open, But Motor Keeps Running
Your garage door’s limit switch may need some adjustment. The limit switch works in tune with your garage door opener to signal when the machinery and electronics can stop working. Daily use will slowly knock your limit switch out of alignment. Periodic adjustments are necessary to prevent your garage door from working harder than it needs to.