Your garage door is the heaviest moving object in your house, and the only thing stopping it from closing on a child, a pet, or a bicycle is a safety system most people have never tested.
Why every opener has this
Between March 1982 and October 1992, children under 15 suffered an average of eight serious injuries or deaths a year from garage doors that failed to stop or reverse. The response was UL 325, the safety standard covering door and gate operators.
Since 1 January 1993, federal regulation has required every residential garage door opener sold in the United States to include an entrapment protection system. In practice that means two things working together:
- Photo eyes. A pair of infrared sensors mounted no more than six inches off the floor on each side of the opening. Break the beam and a closing door stops and reverses.
- Force reversal. The opener senses resistance. If the door hits something on the way down, it reverses without needing the beam at all.
Both are required. Both fail quietly. A dead sensor does not announce itself, and a force setting turned up years ago to stop nuisance reversals sits there doing nothing until the day it matters.
Test 1: the photo eye test
Takes 15 seconds. Do this one first.
- Press the button to close the door.
- While it is moving, wave your foot through the beam near the floor. Keep the rest of you out of the door's path.
- The door should stop and go back up immediately.
If it keeps closing, stop using the automatic close until it is fixed. The sensors are misaligned, dirty, or dead, and the system that protects whatever is under that door is not working.
Before you call anyone
Most sensor faults are five minute fixes you can do yourself. Clear the beam path, wipe both lenses, and if a light is off or flickering, loosen the wing nut and nudge the bracket until it goes steady. The step-by-step version is here. Call us only if it still fails after that, which usually means a failed sensor or a break in the wire inside the wall.
Test 2: the paper towel test
Takes 30 seconds. This one checks the force setting, which the photo eye test does not.
- Lay a roll of paper towels flat on the floor, in the middle of the door's path.
- Press close.
- The door should touch the roll, sense the resistance, and reverse.
A roll of paper towels is used because it is roughly the height and give of a small obstacle while being worth nothing if it gets crushed. A block of wood tells you less and can damage the door.
If the door crushes the roll and keeps going, the down-force is set too high. That setting exists so the opener can tell the difference between an obstruction and the normal resistance of the door. Turned up far enough, it cannot tell at all.
The trap people fall into
When a door starts reversing for no obvious reason, the quick fix is to turn up the close force until it stops complaining. That works, and it defeats the safety system while hiding the real problem.
A door that needs extra force to close is a door that has gone out of balance. Springs, rollers, or track. Turning up the force buys a few months and makes the eventual failure worse.
The third test, which most people skip
The balance test is not a safety-system test, and it tells you more about the door's condition than either of the others.
- Close the door.
- Pull the red release handle hanging from the trolley to disconnect the opener.
- Lift the door by hand to about waist height and let go.
A balanced door stays where you put it. If it slides down or pulls upward, the springs are no longer matched to the door's weight. That is what makes an opener strain, and it is what wears the whole system out early.
A balanced door also lifts with two fingers. If yours takes real effort, something is wrong, and the springs are the first place to look.
How often
Once a month for the two safety tests. They take under a minute together, and you can do them on the way to the car.
The balance test once or twice a year is enough, or any time the door starts sounding different.
If you have young children
Two more things worth doing. Mount the wall button at least five feet up, out of reach. Never let anyone stand under a moving door, and never race it. Pinch points between panels close with enormous force, and small fingers find them.
What we check on a tune-up
All three tests, plus balance, lubrication, cable and spring condition, roller and hinge wear, track alignment against a straightedge, and every bolt on the door. Then a straight answer on what is close to failing and what has years left in it.
It is the cheapest visit we make and the one that prevents the expensive ones. What a tune-up includes.
Failed one of these tests? Try the five minute sensor fixes first, because we would rather you did that than paid us. If the door still will not behave, call or text and describe what it does.