Garage Door Opener "sticking" In Spots



Question:
Thanks in advance for any advice. Our garage door opener (7 year old, 1/3 h.p. worm-drive Lift-Master on a double garage door) is having problems both opening and closing. When closing, it will go approximately 12", then it's as if its safety switch clicks in and raises the door back to its fully open position. The stranger problem is when opening. It will open approximately 12", then it returns to the fully closed position. I would think that if it were a faulty part in the safety switch mechanism, the door might fully open but would never switch direction and fully close. This past summer, it had trouble opening the door and would stop after lifting it between 2 feet and 4 feet. Someone suggested that the spring might need re-tensioning, so I put another 3 or 4 turns on the counterbalance spring and the problem went away. I also lubricated the worm drive and door rollers with TriFlow (a teflon and oil based lubricant.) Again, any suggestions would be appreciated, and thanks for the help!

Answer:
You need to figure out if the problem is in the door, the opener or how they work together. Disconnect the opener from the door. Does the door work right? If not fix the door. If it does, then run the opener while disconnected. Does it work? If not figure out why. Now that you know the door and the opener work by themselves, connect them together and make your adjustments. If you cranked up your spring (something I would never recommend a DIYer try) 3 or 4 turns to get your door working, you may have bigger problems. On a normal residential door, every full turn provides enough energy/travel to raise the door it was designed another 12 inches. (That's 3 or 4 feet of excess force on the door) Even if you mean 3 or 4 quarter turns, that's too much. Spring size and gauge is determined by the height and weight of the door. When it is wrong, you end up with "hot" and "cold" spots in the door travel. Just guessing here, but you door probably feels real heavy when it's down and after going about half way up, it wants to take off like a rocket. That puts too much work on an opener and would cause the problems you describe. The only good way to fix this it to have a pro come out, figure out the weight of the door, and put the correct springs on it. Anything else is only going to be a short-term fix that will cost you in the long run.





Categories