Problems with Garage Doors

Sometimes problems are pretty obvious. Like when there’s water all over the laundry room floor, I can figure out pretty easily that our sump pump hose has frozen and I need to thaw it out and reattach the hose to the sump pump. That happened twice to me this winter!

However, when our electric garage door wouldn’t close and both Ed and I cleared all the debris that could be blocking the way, such as the leftover leaves and cobwebs from last fall and the little red snow shovels the girls use in the winter, and the door STILL wouldn’t close, the problem wasn’t so obvious.

As I was standing outside, staring at the garage door sensors and wondering why the door wouldn’t close, I noticed that the setting sun was reflecting off of the sensor lens. I moved so that I was blocking the sun from shining on the sensor and yelled at Ed to try closing the garage door again.

And guess what? THE DOOR CLOSED!

That solution was so easy, and yet so unexpected. Ed and I didn’t expect it to work, and yet it did.

April showers!

Strangely enough, this past Sunday we were up at my father-in-law’s place, trying to get it ready to sell. His garage door has always been a little wonky, and this time…we couldn’t get it to close after numerous tries. The light was blinking furiously and the door kept going up and down like it was possessed. I cleaned the lens for the door sensors and Ed tried to make sure they were lined up. There was no sunshine at all! In fact, we were getting rained on as all of this was happening. Finally, we had to detach the garage door from the electric opener and close it manually. Fortunately, I suppose, no one is living there at the moment so it’s not a big hassle. But now we have to get it fixed. *sigh*

Rainy Day

Garage door problems. I guess it could be worse! What problems have you been solving lately?

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10 Replies to “Problems with Garage Doors”

  1. I’m glad you were able to at least figure out the problem at your house. Garage sensors can be so tricky! Hopefully the other one will have a more permanent solution. Thanks for sharing!

  2. Ginny, I’m happy that your garage door problem came to a swift and easy end. The latest problem I’ve solved is adding a little rubbing alcohol into my dishwasher solution for clear and bright glasses.

  3. I totally agree that some problems with our garage doors aren’t too obvious even after checking it ourselves. We thought that there’s something wrong with the hinges but I guess it’s not the case, either. It might be better to hire experienced professionals who can give it a more thorough inspection to see what should be repaired.

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