Garage Door Problems

[Niels]

This is the first house I have had that has a remote garage door opener. I have a two car garage with a 1/2 hp MVP unit installed by Romac. In the six months since I moved here I have had four occasions when the garage door got stuck in the open position and refused to close (either with the remote or using the wall unit).

On the three previous occasions that this happened I called the warranty office and they sent Romac right over. The first two times they told me that the door sensitivity was adjusted too sensitive. The last time, he told me that the springs needed to be adjusted. Today it just failed for the fourth time in six months.

Has anyone else had problems like this with their garage door opener? If so, did you find a solution?

[chuckinca]

Happens to us all the time. Had the door adjusted three or four times and we spray the unit with silicone as recommended.

I'm going to change the operator to 3/4 HP.



.

[Dan =^..^=]

:shrug: Just a thought... I wonder if the unit is getting too hot and shuts down. This may be a dumb question but does your garage get extremely hot? If so, you might put a fan on it for a few minutes to see if cooling it off makes it start working.

Also, if the unit's light blinks when it fails it might be an error code that can be looked up in the manual.

[johnfarr]

I had that problem after the warranty period. 3 years ago I used another door repair company and they said the circuit board in by the motor was shot. Something like $175 later the door has worked as it should ever since.

[dgammon6]

Could something be blocking the electric eye down by the floor? They must be pointed at each other and nothing blocking the beam. Sometimes they can get knocked out of line.

[macro]

Could something be blocking the electric eye down by the floor? They must be pointed at each other and nothing blocking the beam. Sometimes they can get knocked out of line.

Had a similar problem once. Late afternoon, would open door and then wouldn't be able to close it. Turned out that at a certain time of the day sun would shine directly on one of the electric eye sensors and overload it so it thought there was a blockage in the way of the door closing and would refuse to close. Drove me nuts for several weeks. :loco:

[Rag Bagger]

You shouldn't have that kind of problem with a new unit. Keep after the warranty dept. until it is fixed right. Let them know your getting a little tired of all these failures and maybe it's time to change out the door opener.

It doesn't take a of of HP to operate these doors. That is if the springs are set right. You can test that yourself. Use the red cord to disconnect the door from the motor drive. You should be able to operate the door with relative ease in fact when the door is down the springs by themselves may raise the door. If it is hard to raise then the springs are not torqued enough and Romac should adjust accordingly. Otherwise it may just be a bad motor. Either way Romac shoud repair the door.

[tommyble]

Check where the electric eye is mounted. If it is mounted on the track, it is mounted wrong, it should be mounted off the track. Reason being when the door begins to close it jolts the track, if the eye is a tad loose it will vibrate and and casue the eyes to break contact stopping the door from closing.

[784caroline]

If you had a lighting strike anywhere near your home, the circuit boards in your garage Door opener are very prone to getting fried. Thats what happened to us and the repair man showed me the "burnt" marks where the leads connect to the circuit board. After we replaced the board all has worked well. BTW we have 2 openers and only one was damaged.

[pooh]

Since you've already had problems with your door opener, here's one more thing to watch for.

Mom in law's garage door at her first house in Sabal Chase worked fine for years. Then one day, it would just open, then close. Took a while, but she finally determined that her door and her neighbor's door had the same setting. Why this happened after years of no problem for either of them is beyond me. Now, in her new home, here in Caroline, after 6 months, her door started doing the same thing, though this time, it was synced with her next door neighbor's door. Both ladies thought they were crazy....doors going up and down for no apparent reason. Again, her code and her neighbor's code were the same.

Happened to us once. Fortunately a friend was coming home late one night and he knows our exterior remote opener code so he closed the door for us. Now I make sure I lock the opener each and every night.

[Niels]

Thanks for all the responses. The unit does give off a code but its a little hard to decipher because I don't know the difference between what the manufacturer considers to be various flashing codes that are very similar. I do know that the problem does not involve the electric eye sensors because they give off green light codes and I have red light codes.

In any case, Romac came today to look at the unit. Unlike other times when they came, this time the unit was totally dead and they could not get it running. They replaced the circuit board in the unit. He also checked the wall unit while he was here (which was OK). Hopefully this will take care of the problem.

[Pturner]

Good, I'm glad it died while under warranty so they wouldn't just keep putting band aids on it until the warranty ran out.