Troubleshooting

Common Garage Door Problems and What Causes Them

Not sure what's wrong with your garage door? Match your symptom below to its likely causes, the checks that are safe to try, and the point where a technician takes over.

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All Problems

Garage Door Motor Not Responding?

When a garage door motor stops responding, the sound it makes identifies the fault. Total silence with no light points to power — a tripped RCD, an unplugged unit or a failed transformer. A hum with no movement usually means a stripped drive gear or a failed capacitor, so the motor is energised but cannot drive. A single click and nothing is typically the logic board or a seized motor. And a motor that strains, moves a little and gives up is often not a motor fault at all: the door has become too heavy because a spring has broken. An opener repair and a full replacement supplied, installed and programmed are quoted side by side once we know which part has failed, so you can weigh one against the other before anything is done.

Garage Door Off Its Tracks?

A garage door comes off its track when the rollers are forced out of their guides — most often after the door closes onto an obstruction, takes a knock from a vehicle, loses a cable so one side unloads, or simply wears its rollers flat until one jumps out. The door then leans, binds and can fall. Stop operating it immediately: every further attempt bends more track and can pull additional rollers out. Re-seating the door, straightening the rails and replacing damaged rollers is quoted once we have seen the damage. If a cable let go as part of the failure, that is re-rigged and quoted with it.

Garage Door Remote Not Working?

If your garage door remote has stopped working, first press the wall button: if the door responds there, the door and opener are fine and the fault is in the remote or the receiver. Change the battery, then try re-pairing the remote using the learn button on the opener's powerhead. If a fresh battery and re-pairing both fail, the usual culprits are a full memory on older openers, a failing receiver board, or LED lighting and other electronics drowning out the signal. Replacement remotes are supplied and programmed on one attendance, and that single attendance covers as many remotes as you need — the price is confirmed before we start. If the wall button does not work either, the problem is the opener itself, not the remote.

Broken Garage Door Spring or Cable?

A broken garage door spring announces itself with a loud bang and leaves the door far too heavy to lift, because the spring — not the motor — carries almost the entire weight. A broken cable instead leaves the door hanging crooked, with one side lifting and the other dragging. Both are under extreme tension and both are genuinely dangerous to work on without winding bars and training. A single spring, a matched pair and cables are each quoted supplied and fitted, with the price confirmed before any work starts. Springs are rated in cycles rather than years, typically 10,000, which is seven to ten years of normal use — less where the air is damp or salty, which pits the steel and shortens their life.

Garage Door Stuck Halfway?

A garage door that stops halfway has usually hit something mechanical rather than electrical: a roller off its track, a cable that has slipped its drum leaving one side higher than the other, a spring that has lost tension so the door is too heavy past a certain point, or an obstruction and bent rail at the exact spot it stops. Openers also stop mid-travel when their force limits are set too tight or the drive gear is stripping. Stop cycling the door — a half-open door with a failed cable or spring can drop, and repeated attempts turn one bent part into several. Re-seating a door and straightening track, re-rigging a cable and replacing a spring are all separate jobs, each quoted after diagnosis and before any work starts.

Garage Door Won't Close?

A garage door that opens but refuses to close is nearly always the safety sensors — the two photo-eyes near the floor that must see each other before the opener will let the door descend. Break, misalign, dirty or unplug that beam and the door reverses and the opener light blinks a code. Start by wiping both lenses and clearing anything in the beam path, then check both sensor LEDs are lit steady rather than blinking. If that does not fix it, the sensors, their wiring or the opener's logic board need attention, and that repair is quoted before any work starts. The other causes are travel limits set wrongly and a genuine obstruction in the tracks. Do not bypass the sensors: they are what stops a closing door landing on a child, a pet or a car bonnet.

Garage Door Won't Open?

A garage door that won't open at all is almost always one of five things: a snapped torsion spring (the door is suddenly far too heavy for the motor), a failed opener or drive gear, a remote that has lost its pairing or battery, the manual release cord left disengaged, or the door jammed off its track. The quickest way to tell is to disengage the motor and lift the door by hand — if it will not budge or feels enormously heavy, the spring has gone, and that is a spring replacement. If it lifts easily by hand, the fault is the opener or the remote instead, which means either a motor repair or a new remote programmed to your opener. Whichever it turns out to be, you get the price before any work starts. Never force a door that will not move; a broken spring means the full weight is unsupported.

Noisy Garage Door?

Match the noise to the cause. Squealing and screeching is dry rollers, hinges or bearings. Grinding is worn rollers or an opener straining. Rattling is loose hardware — hinges, brackets and track bolts working free through vibration. Chain slap is a loose opener drive. Popping or groaning as the door starts moving points at the springs. One loud bang is a spring letting go, and that is not a noise problem at all. Most noisy doors are cured by a service plus whatever parts are needed, which lubricates, re-tensions, re-balances and tightens everything; worn rollers are the part most often replaced with it. A door that takes the weather gets noisy sooner, because damp and salt attack bearings and spring steel.