Why won’t Tina’s Woodstock garage door open?

It’s been a long day and Tina is happy to return to her Woodstock home. Her thoughts turn to soaking in a bath before a bite to eat followed by reclining on the sofa with a good book she’s reading these days. As she pulls in the driveway, the hits the button on the remote. If she’s timed it right, she’ll pull down the driveway and into the garage without having to hit the brakes; the garage door will open just as the car passes underneath. But, something is wrong.

Tina hits the brakes hard as she realizes the garage door hasn’t opened. It hasn’t even started to open. Now, stopped in front of the closed garage door, she hits the button again. Still nothing.

There are several reasons the garage door isn’t opening. Tina doesn’t care. What she cares about is that her relaxation is on hold. She’ll probably leave the car in her Woodstock driveway go inside and call the garage door repair service. In the meantime, she’ll try to get back to her plan for relaxing. It’s not the end of the world but it has caused a little frustration just when she expected to begin unwinding.

What could be wrong with her garage door? There are several possibilities, including:

• One of the springs that take up the weight of the garage door could have broken. The torsion springs make it possible for the garage door opener to lift and lower the garage door. Without the springs, the garage door opener is a 100-pound weakling waiting on the beach for someone to kick sand in his face.
• Your garage door could have tracks that are out of alignment. Usually, if this is the problem, it won’t cause the garage door to not move at all, but that is a possibility.
• The belt to the garage door opener motor could have broken or slipped off the pulley. In this case, the garage door opener may be running but it is disconnected from the drive that moves the garage door.
• The garage door transmitter may be faulty. If the transmitter worked with your garage door before, it should work now. But, things do break and it’s possible this could happen to your transmitter. You may need to reset the codes or replace the transmitter.
• Something could be blocking the garage door so it won’t open. It’s also possible that the garage door is locked. But, why would you lock your garage door if you want to use the garage door opener to open it?
• There’s another possibility but it’s so simple that you might not think about it; you may need new batteries in your transmitter.

Whatever the problem with Tina’s garage door opener, there’s no reason to stress out. She can check out the batteries, make sure the door isn’t locked or blocked. If none of those are causing the problem, she can call a garage door repair service to send someone to her Woodstock home. But, first, she should soak in a bath, have something to eat and relax with her book. The garage door will wait. Well, maybe she wants to call the garage door repair service first, but, either way, she shouldn’t stress.

Invitation to the wrong sort – Woodstock garage door stuck halfway open

It’s not convenient when your Woodstock garage door stops halfway up. In fact, it’s down-right inconvenient.

You’re in a hurry – places to go and things to do. You rush out to the garage and climb into the car while your mind runs through your to-do list for the 500th time. You hit the button for the remote garage door opener and you hear that familiar sound of the door going up. You start the car and, with your foot on the brake, you put the car in reverse. You’re ready to back out of the garage and … wait a minute. Something is wrong?

What’s wrong is that your garage door has stopped halfway up. If you back out now you’ll rip the garage door of the track and break the door panel into pieces, not to mention the damage to the springs and other parts of the garage door and garage door opener.

Woodstock is a great place to live – The Square, nice neighbors, not too far from work and things to see and do. But, you still wouldn’t want to leave your doors wide open. From time to time, someone may drive, or stroll, down your street who is not that nice. And if your garage door is stuck halfway open, that’s an invitation to the occasional nefarious character who might happen by.

If the garage door is stuck halfway open, you might try to fix it yourself. However, this will require working from a ladder and knowing how to identify the limit switch adjustment, for a start. Adjusting the ‘down’ adjustment may solve the problem. Then again, it may not.

You may have to go up and down the ladder several times to find the sweet spot where the garage door works again. In the process, you may overheat the motor in the garage door opener. This isn’t necessarily catastrophic – if you leave it alone for 15 minutes, or so, it should work again.

You can also lubricate the hinges and the bearings in the track. This is part of the standard process of garage door maintenance, but there’s no guarantee this will work either.

You can also look for debris that is blocking the door’s safety eyes. But, what you don’t want to do is walk away with your Woodstock garage door stuck halfway open.