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How To Align Garage Door Sensors

Garage door sensors are vital to getting your garage door to open and close.

Owning a home requires homeowners to maintain a lot of working parts. The garage door is one of those areas that needs to be checked on regularly. Imagine neglecting your garage door maintenance and the moment you come home from running errands in stormy weather and your garage door won’t open. This can be problematic for you as now you need to go inside your home during the stormy weather to open the garage door. The garage door sensors must not be aligned. Trying to figure out how to align the garage door sensors? This requires some troubleshooting as you seek to get the green lights aligned on the sensors.

Let’s take a look below at some more information regarding your garage door sensors.

What Are Garage Door Sensors?

Garage door sensors are in place to communicate with your garage door opener. There will be two garage door sensors, one located on each side of the garage door. The main purpose of garage door sensors is to prevent your garage door from closing on children, pets, homeowners, and other things that might cross the garage door doorway. The two sensors work as an emitter and receiver. One sensor sends a signal to the other to tell the garage door to open or close.

Without good sensors your garage door will likely not open and close properly.

How Do I Align The Sensors?

Aligning the garage door sensors should not take you too long. In some cases, someone or something might have knocked into the sensor and now you need to re-align them. Let’s take a look below at some necessary steps to accomplish this task.

  1. Loosen the screws and take the wing nut off the receiving sensor (green light) from its bracket. Sliding the mounting bracket away so that the sensors and its mounting are no longer aligned.
  2. Make sure that the receiving sensor is no longer communicating with the sending sensor and that the green light is now off.
  3. Give it ten seconds after the light is off.
  4. Then slowly rotate the receiving sensor to where it is now pointing at the sending sensor. Wait for the green light to light up again. Once you have a strong green light showing and the sensors are aligned you can reattach the receiving sensor wing nut.

If realigning the garage door sensors in the garage doorway does not do the trick, it is possible that the home’s breaker box needs to be checked. Tripping the fuse in the breaker box should be fixed before realigning the sensors.

Other Recommended Maintenance

Now that you are aware of how to align your garage door sensors you can read up on how to balance a garage door. Also, functionality issues with one part of the garage door could throw off other areas of the garage door. Getting the door balanced is key.

Next, as you begin fixing or replacing parts on the garage door, it is a good idea to look into how long a garage door opener can last. As a homeowner, saving money for projects like a garage door replacement is a great idea.

Lastly, if you are still having issues with the garage you will want to read up on why the garage door won’t close. Even though you have fixed the sensors, there could be something related to the drive chain in the garage door opener, or even a spring issue.

Hire a garage door repair person to fix all of your garage door needs.

When Do I Call A Professional?

When it comes to garage door repairs or troubleshooting, you might want to call on your local garage door service company. Typically, garage door installation companies have a service unit. They. can come out and inspect the garage door and make any adjustments or repairs that are needed. Also, call on your local home inspection team. They can inspect the garage parts during a full home inspection. Also, they can recommend a reputable garage door service company.

Conclusion

Conducting regular maintenance on your garage door is key. Also, you won’t want to come home during a rain storm and the garage door won’t open. Call your local home inspection team for a garage door inspection to ensure that everything is in good working condition. Reach out to Alpha building inspectors to check your garage door system during a home inspection in Merrimack, New Hampshire, and surrounding areas.