What To Do if Your Garage Door Keeps Stopping
As you go about your busy day, the last thing you need is a garage door that keeps stopping.
Whether you need to ferry items back and forth, park the car or use your garage as an easier entry point to the rest of your home, any kind of fault is going to put a spanner in the works. Not only does it restrict access, but it can leave your property vulnerable and exposed if the door won’t close.
So what should you do if your garage door keeps stopping? It’s quite a common problem, and many things could be going on, especially keeping in mind how many different door and opening styles there are.
With this in mind, this month at Doormatic Garage Doors, we’ll be guiding you through the topic. This will include the common causes of your garage door getting stuck and how you can fix the problem.
What stops a garage door from opening?
Garage doors are pretty robust given the materials they’re manufactured with, but there can be a wide variety of things that result in it stopping from opening or closing fully. Here are the four most common things that stop a garage door in its tracks:
Damaged springs
If the springs that hold the tension for your door – a common component of up and over garage doors – have been damaged in some way, this could be the culprit.
These springs allow you to open the door smoothly, so if it feels like the door is getting stuck, you may need replacement springs or think about getting a new door if yours has seen better days.
The track is not aligned properly
Sectional garage doors, up and over doors and side sliding doors run on a track system, helping to keep the lifting and lowering of them smooth. As you can imagine, if these tracks are not aligned with one another on each side of your door opening, then there will come a point where that smooth action comes to a shuddering halt. This will often take professional adjustment to get things moving again.
Obstructions
Regardless of whether you’ve got an electric garage door or a manual one, obstructions are one of the more common reasons for it to stop.
If you’ve got a manual door and there is something caught in the tracks or between the door and its frame, you will find it gets stuck. It’s best to take a closer look, moving any boxes and items away from the door inside the garage to avoid the problem altogether.
For automatic garage doors, you’ll want to check that nothing is blocking the sensors. Your sensors may be stopping the door as a safety measure if the signal is blocked. Check that things such as nearby flower pots you’ve placed in front of your garage or items in the garage itself haven’t started to encroach on the sensors.
Misaligned sensors
As mentioned above, sensors can sometimes be overlooked on automatic garage doors, but as well as preventing the blockage of their signal, you also need to ensure they remain aligned. Any break in their alignment will make the system think there is something in the way, meaning the garage door stops when closing and goes back up.
How to fix a garage door that keeps stopping
Fixing a garage door that keeps stopping should begin with investigating the cause of the problem. From there you can establish how easy it is to put things right. For example, simply removing any obstacles should be a pretty instant fix.
However, if you aren’t able to diagnose the problem yourself, or if you know the issue but don’t know how to fix it, don’t worry; at Doomatic, we’re your local garage door repair company.
Trying to fix a broken spring or misaligned track yourself could cause further damage if you have no experience. Worse still, you risk injury to you and your family where springs and heavy doors are involved. Instead, turn to our expert engineers and we’ll help to restore your garage door to full working order.
If your garage door stops while opening or closing, call us today. You can get help and advice from our friendly team and book an appointment to help put your daily routine back on track wherever you are in the South East – including London, Hampshire, Berkshire, West Sussex, East Sussex, Kent and Essex.
