The Most Common Garage Door Problems (And What They Actually Mean)

The most common garage door problems are emergencies. They either leave you trapped inside your garage or they leave your home with a great big hole in the front of your house. Almost all of them can be prevented. And almost all of them get blamed on the wrong thing.

When I pull up to a service call I have usually already got a good idea of what I am walking into. After thousands of calls you start to see the same handful of situations over and over again. Let me walk you through exactly what those are, what is actually causing them, and what you should know before you call anyone.

But first, the three questions I ask every homeowner before I even show up:

What I ask every customer before I arrive: What have you noticed? When was the last time the door was serviced? Was there anything weird going on before this happened? Those three questions tell me almost everything I need to know.

The 5 Most Common Problems I See

1. Crooked Door with the Cable Off

This is the most common thing I pull up to. The door is sitting crooked because the cable has come off. Most of the time it happened because the door closed on something in the corner of the garage a rake, a broom, a bike. But when the cable comes off on its own with nothing obvious in the way, that is almost always a spring system that is failing. The cable did not just decide to come off. Something in the counterbalance system gave out and the cable had no choice.

2. Top Panel Bowing In from the Inside

This one is hard to watch. The door is all the way closed but the top panel is bowing inward in the middle. What happened is the spring broke and nobody knew. Then someone hit the button and the opener tried to open the door with zero spring tension. There is no lifting force from the broken spring system so the opener grabs the top panel and pulls it inward trying to do the job by itself. That is not a motor problem. The motor was just trying to do what it was told. The spring gave out and the door paid the price.

3. Dented or Cracking Panels

Years of wear and tear, weather, sun exposure, the occasional car bump or hailstorm. Panels crack, dent, and warp over time. Sometimes it is purely cosmetic. Sometimes a cracked or warped panel is affecting how the door seals and moves. Either way it is worth having someone take a look and tell you honestly whether a panel swap makes sense or whether the whole door is telling you something bigger.

4. Door Stuck Open Because of the Sensors

The sensor gets knocked off the track, bumped during a move, or it is just extremely old and the lenses have clouded over from years of sun, dust, and spider webs. The door will not close because it thinks something is in the way even when there is nothing there.

If you have a LiftMaster, Chamberlain, or Craftsman motor and the lights are flashing and the door will not close with nothing in the way, here is what to do: look at the sensors at the bottom of each side of the track. One should have a solid green light. The other should have a solid yellow or orange light. If either one is blinking, the sensors are out of alignment. I can actually walk most homeowners through realigning them over the phone. It does not mean the door does not need to be inspected or serviced, but it might get you moving again right now.

5. Wayne Dalton Torque Master System Lockout

This one catches a lot of people completely off guard. If you are in a newer build home, anywhere from 3 to 7 years old, and the door is stuck open and will not come down even when you pull the emergency release cord, there is a good chance you have a Wayne Dalton Torque Master spring system. These are installed on a lot of new construction builds. It is not a lockout in the traditional sense. What is happening is the spring system has failed and as a result the door is stuck wide open, leaving your home completely exposed. The emergency release does not help here. The door is not coming down until that spring system is replaced by someone who knows what they are looking at.

6. Stop Blaming the Motor

99% of homeowners think every problem with the door not opening or closing is the motor. I completely understand why. It is the electronic thing. It is the thing you interact with every single day when you hit the button on the wall or use the remote in the car. It feels like the brain of the whole operation.

But the motor is just a guide and a convenience. It is not there to pull a bunch of weight. Majority of the time when I arrive the motor is completely fine. It is shutting itself off to protect itself from breaking. It is sensing the resistance, the friction, and the weight of an aging door with extremely worn moving parts and it is saying: I am not doing this, something is wrong.

Give the motor a little credit. Every time the door does not work and you want to blame the opener, consider that your motor may have just saved you from something a lot more expensive. It felt something was wrong and it stopped. That is it doing its job perfectly.

The One Test Every Homeowner Should Do Right Now

You do not need a technician to do this. You just need two minutes and an honest answer from your door.The At-Home Door Balance Test

       
1. Make sure the door is fully closed first. Never pull the emergency release cord with the door open.
2. With the door closed, pull the emergency release cord to disconnect it from the opener.
3. Try to lift the door. It should feel light and easy. If you have a scale, put it under the door and see if it reads under 10 pounds. If it is heavy, the spring system is not doing its job.
4. Lift the door halfway up and let go. It should stay right there. It should not crash down and it should not fly up.
5. Whatever you feel when you lift that door is what your motor feels 3 to 10 times a day every single day.
   ‍

If the door feels heavy, uneven, or will not stay in the middle, your spring system needs attention. That is not a maybe. Call us before the motor gives out trying to compensate.