Homeowners use their garage doors several times a day, every day. Regular use adds up to a significant number of repetitions of going up and down (e.g.: 365 days x 3 times a day = ± 1100 per year) and the resulting wear and tear means garage doors do go wrong and sometimes break.

The reliability and convenience of their garage door means owners take them for granted, and forget that like all machines, these doors require regular maintenance to ensure they keep working year after year.

And, of course, there is sometimes abuse as well (like bumping the door with a car, or children hanging on the door as it goes up).

This means that garage doors do sometimes stop working or go wrong and then they need the service of professional repairs.

However, it is like having your car serviced every 10,000k - regular, preventative maintenance is the best way of ensuring your door remains reliable and in a good state of repair, so you should consider scheduling a service by a trained Garage Door Technician every 24 – 36 months

 Below, we have listed some of the most common warning signs that it is time to hire Brisbane Automatic Garage Door Openers:

Garage door drops:

Manufacturers try and keep them as light as possible, but garage doors are heavy pieces of machinery with a single car doors weighing in the region of 50kg and a double door around 100kg.

If something goes wrong with the tension in the counterbalancing/torque springs, or a spring breaks, the door can drop quite rapidly and dangerously.

Note: One of the safety features in the design of these doors is that the springs almost never fail while the door is fully open, as the springs are only tensioned / torqued up as the door closes, so they tend to fail when the door is closed or almost closed.

If you notice that one of the springs has failed, for safety, you and your family members should stop using the door immediately and schedule a professional to look at it.

This is not only because the door is dangerous and heavy when it closes rapidly, but because a spring will typically lift in the region of 40 - 50kg, and that is an enormous amount of force that can be explosively released if you make a mistake while working on the door.

You should also call a professional if you think your door is closing unpredictably, or if it continues to close under its own load when you stop it while partly opened.

No response to door opener:

If your door is fitted with an Automatic opener, they are quite a complex machines, with several components that can go wrong and may need repair during the lifespan of the door.

If the opener does not respond, or seems to be sluggish, when the push button or remote is used, this could be for several reasons, starting with something simple like a flat battery in the remote, through to something like a damage or failed PCB (Process Control Board).

Diagnosing and tracing electrical and electronic faults, can be tricky, (and expensive if you get it wrong and buy the wrong component online), so call our technicians to check the system and diagnose the fault so you can decide on the repair.

Garage door will not close:

For safety reasons door can be fitted with IR (Infra Red) beams that stops and reverses your door when it is closing and something like a child, car or pet passes through the opening.

Note: These sensors are an excellent safety feature, and we recommend them to all property owners.

If these IR Beams are working as they should, and they are “cut”, the door should stop closing and reverse its motion and return to the fully open position. If they are cut while the door is opening, it will continue to open as this is the safest position if something is in the door opening.

But if one of these IR sensors fails, or it receives a knock that misaligns it, then the homeowner may find that the door will refuse to close or move once it is in the up position.

Or if the alignment is marginal, you may see an unsystematic pattern of door motion, as it stops, starts, and reverses for apparently no reason.

If this is happening, call our technicians so they can check the IR beams and other safety features.

Track misalignment:

With improvements in technology new, modern garage doors usually move smoothly and quietly in their tracks as they go up and down.

Older garage doors with worn out tracks or rollers may have become misaligned and therefore noisy as they rattle and squeak up and down. If the misalignment and wear is significant, the rollers could fall out the tracks, the door could jam, and even the cables my come off the drums and wrap around the axle.

This misalignment should be visible or audible immediately, and then it is recommended that you stop using the door and call our technicians so they can check it and repair it.

Sometimes you only discover that something has gone wrong retrospectively (like a Roller coming out of the track, or a cable flipping off the drum) when you try to open the garage door & it sticks or grinds.

Ehen this happens, don’t try to place the door back on its track by your own as this could end in injury or damaging the garage door. Leaving the door as it is will also assist the technician in diagnosing the real problem, but if you have already taken it apart yourself, he will first have to reassemble the door, before trying to work out why it went wrong, and this is a much more time consuming and costly repair.

For expert garage door services in Brisbane, including both routine and emergency garage door repair and maintenance, you can trust the experienced team at Brisbane Automatic Garage Door Openers. Call 0424 313 713 now or Email admin@brisbaneopeners.com.au!