Even if you are a competent and confident DIY enthusiast you are bound to have some limits regarding what you can attempt on your own, and sometimes it might even be dangerous to attempt to fix a problem that should be left to a professional.

A classic DIY scenario would be if you have a garage door dilemma and the doors won’t open or you can’t get it to lock properly. Do you attempt to sort it out by yourself or should you ask an expert to get to the root of the problem?

Here is a look at some common garage door issues, including what to do when you lose power to the door, why regular pressure adjustments might be needed, and a cautionary note about damaging your sensor, plus a tip to prolong the life of your door.

When you can’t get your car out

It is always going to be frustrating to discover that the power to your garage seems to have been lost and you can’t get your car out because the door is closed.

You might have a moment of panic and think that you are not going to be able to get your car out, but the first thing you should try is to go to the inside of the garage and look for a cord which usually has a red handle attached to it.

This is normally hanging down from the guide track that the opener uses to open and close the door when everything is working automatically. Use this manual override to see if you can get the door open by pulling the cord.

Keep up the pressure

Cold weather can sometimes find a way of causing your door to malfunction or stop working altogether, and a likely explanation is that the freezing temperatures might have stiffened the mechanism, causing it to lose power.

If you have a garage door that has been fitted in the last decade or so it is probable that your door opener has pressure adjustments to raise and lower the door successfully each time. What you might find is that you need to adjust these settings every season so that the cold weather doesn’t catch you out.

Check your manufacturer’s instructions if you want to do this yourself or you might decide to use someone like D&L Garage door repair Las Vegas to fix any problem you have and make the necessary adjustments.

Sensitive sensor

Your garage door depends on a pair of photosensitive eyes in order to function properly and any obstruction to the path of light that is sending the signal will cause the doors to fail to open or close fully.

It is wise to remember that the sensor also provides an important safety feature and without it working properly you run the risk of a person or object getting caught by the door.

It might be a simple case of an object blocking the sensor or there might be some dirt or debris that is making it malfunction. The obvious solution is to clean the sensor, but a word of warning, careless cleaning can cause irreparable damage.

The eye of the sensor is very sensitive and it is easy to be too enthusiastic with your cleaning or use an unsuitable cleaning product, both of which could cause damage that can’t be reversed.

You can attempt to clean the lens yourself but you should take great care and use the recommended cleaning products, or you might decide it is better to get a professional to do this job when they come to service and maintain the garage door.

Seen better days

There will inevitably come a point where your garage door will become beyond economical repair and will need to be replaced, but there are a few fixes to try in order to prolong its life for a bit longer.

A sagging garage door is a classic sign of wear and tear and as it falls out of shape it will become harder to open. You could try and square it up with tension rods which are positioned on the back of the door and is probably the garage door equivalent of a facelift.

The rods are placed diagonally from top to bottom and, once in place, they can be adjusted a little at a time until you find the door seems to be functioning as well as can be expected for its age.

This is a job that you could potentially do yourself and the tension rods are available from DIY stores, but like all maintenance and repair tasks, know your limits and call in the pros if you are not completely confident with what you are doing.

Hi, my name is Sam Halicia, I been working in the Garage Door Industry for over a decade. Where I started as a technician and now is the owner/operator of D&L Las Vegas Garage Doors. As a technician, I worked around the clock for the convenience of all his customers. My business now thrives off the very same principles. Where I provide same day services at no extra cost as well as unbeatable customer satisfaction. No matter how big or small a person’s problem may be it has been my goal to make sure each person gets handled in a timely fashion with no surprises