Imagine if your garage did not have a door. You would always be on edge, worrying about the safety of your car and other property from burglars and the elements. Your garage door plays a huge role in your home by keeping your property and family safe. And like most of the appliances in your home, garage door designs have changed over the years.
Currently, the new trend is modern garage doors. These doors offer numerous benefits and come equipped with sensors that allow you to open the door with a remote. When these sensors are not working, leaving your vehicle to open the door manually is highly inconvenient. If your garage door won’t open, here are some easy steps to align your sensors before calling the local garage door pros.
How the Garage Sensors Work
Before aligning the sensors, you need to understand how they work. Your garage door has twin sensors. One sends signals or the emitter and receives the signals or the receiver. The two sensors have infrared light, which is out of the human eye’s visible spectrum. The emitter sends the infrared light to the receiver, which opens or closes your garage door.
Infrared light travels in a straight line between the two sensors, and any interruption stops the transmission of the signal from the emitter to the receiver. This interruption means the receiver will stop the door in its tracks, protecting whatever was under the door, an object, child, or pet, from imminent crushing.
1. Disconnect the Garage Door’s Power Supply
The first thing you must do is disconnect the garage door’s power supply. If the sensors plugin directly into a wall outlet, turn off the switch or trip the garage fuse from the breaker box. Before you handle electricity, ensure you wear electricity-resistant gloves for safety, even if you will not work with live wires. These gloves have classes, so ensure the gloves have a “Class 0” or “Class 00” rating and can withstand high voltages of up to 500V AC.
2. Unscrew the Sensors’ Screws
Use a screwdriver to unscrew the garage door sensors’ mounting brackets. To unscrew, insert the screwdriver into the screws and turn them anticlockwise. Do not remove the screws, but only loosen them because, in the following steps, you will only need to slide them up and down.
3. Slide the Sensors Downward
After loosening the mounting bracket screws so they can easily slide up and down, slide each sensor on either side of the door downward with your bare hands. Avoid using a wrench, as it will disfigure the sensor, leaving marks on its surface that may hinder its functionality. Slide the sensor as low as necessary, ensuring it remains inside the bracket.
4. Attach a String and Tie Some Knots
Get a string, and after sliding the sensor as low as possible, attach one end of the string to each sensor and its corresponding bracket. Tie a tight knot and remember this step has a significant effect on the success of this procedure. Run the other untied end of the string across the garage door opening. Roll the string around the center of the other sensor before tying a knot, ensuring the string stays as straight as possible.
5. Check the String’s Level
Place a lever below the string to ensure it runs level across the garage’s doorway. You must manually press the spirit level against the taut string, holding it there for several seconds. If the string line is level, move to the following step. If the line is not level, adjust the sensors by sliding the brackets up or down as necessary.
Continue adjusting until the spirit level shows that both sensors are level. To avoid exhaustion from the numerous trips back and forth across the garage doorway, get someone to help you finish the job faster.
6. Fasten the Bracket Screws
Once you confirm the alignment of both sensors, fasten the screws. Ensure you tighten the screws, so the sensors do not budge from their position. After tightening, use the level again to ensure the sensors have not lost their alignment during the tightening.
7. Power the Garage Door
After you confirm the sensors did not lose their alignment, remove the string and power the garage. Check whether the sensors are working as they should.
It’s frustrating when your garage door won’t open or close. Before you call a professional to repair the door, try the simple steps above to align the sensors. If the garage door still doesn’t work after trying this, you can call the repair company to check whether it’s a different problem.
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