Garage Doors: An Abundance of Options

Your garage door sensor is responsible for the proper operation of your door. So, when it's not functioning properly, it can cause a lot of inconveniences. This is because your door may fail to open or close all the way. Besides malfunctioning home garage doors, there are different ways a garage door repair technician can tell if you have a malfunctioning sensor. Here are a few you should know.

1. Visible damage to the sensor wires 

Depending on the type of residential garage doors, you can tell there's damage to the sensor wires if they flash orange instead of red. In this case, inspect the wires leading from the door sensor to the terminal on the back of your opener. If these wires are tangled, unweave them and carefully inspect whether they are broken. If they're broken or placed wrongly, you need to contact a garage door repair technician to fix the issue. Don't try to repair the sensor wires yourself because an incorrectly connected wire can cause your garage door opener to malfunction, which can result in additional repair costs.

2. Power disruption to the garage door sensor  

When there's power supply disruption to home garage doors, the sensor lights will not turn green. The issue could be as simple as an unplugged cable. However, sometimes a blown fuse may cause your garage door sensor to malfunction. If you suspect this could be the cause of your door sensor failure, contact an experienced garage door repair expert to inspect your wiring and replace your switch.

3. The photo-eye light doesn't power up

Residential garage doors have sensors that feature a photo-eye with two LED lights situated a few inches above the ground. One of the lights turns green while the other turns red. The green light indicates that the photo eye has received a signal, while the red shows only one photo-eye has received a signal. If both of the lights don't come on, most likely your sensor isn't working.

Your garage door sensor may fail to work because the photo-eyes are damaged. However, they may also fail to turn on if the photo-eyes are misaligned. For the signal to be properly transmitted, the photo eyes should be placed on the same level. If the green one turns on, but the red one just blinks, the issue could be a misaligned photo-eye.

Modern home garage door sensors play an important safety role because they prevent your door from closing while there's somebody underneath. Therefore, it's important to know when you have a failing garage door sensor and call a garage door repair technician to correct the issue before someone gets hurt. Contact a company that services home garage doors to learn more.