Rental garage door is developing issues; advice?

November 1, 2021 11:28 PM

I rent a house and the garage door has over the past two months opened itself three times. Two of those times were not witnessed; once was fully observed. That time, it touched down as requested but then went immediately back up again on its own. When halted and sent back, it stayed down the second time. My landlord is not very responsive but when pushed strategically will send help depending on his assessment and how much I bug him. Should I bug him or is this fixable by me?

I've rented this house for two and a half years. Up until two months ago - no complaints regarding the garage door. Sometime in September, I left the house and hit the shut door button; the door started going down as I was leaving as normal but when I returned many hours later, it was wide open. I was alarmed, but assumed it was a freak incident so I just moved on a bit more watchfully. Then about a week ago, I hit it closed and waited and saw it touch down and go back up again so I paused it and sent it back down where it stayed. The next time I opened it, I cleared any fall leaves away from the door bottom in case that was an issue.

This morning, I again left the house and hit the shut door button. I have been trying to watch it close each day, but I may have gotten complacent, I don't remember. Either way, I came home many hours later to it wide open again. I am worried if this keeps happening someone might help themselves to my garage storage so I would like to have it secure.

I have a little clip-on button that is on my car visor that triggers the door to go up or down. I assume it's not that since it's working to send it downward, but maybe that needs a new battery just in case? Otherwise, what is potentially wrong? There is also a button that sends the door down mounted on the inside garage wall. Seems to also be working to me and is not the one being pressed when this is happening anyhow. There is a laser thing at the base of the door on either side that needs to not be blocked to have the door go down. There are very light drifts of leaves that do blow into the door area, but that has been the case for the full duration of my tenancy so I don't think that should be the issue.

What could I do to troubleshoot this myself if anything, or does this need a repairman of some sort? My landlord is not very responsive, so I have to pick and choose my battles wisely. If I can present a solid case to him, I will, but I'd like to try anything that's easy myself first. (I'm not really looking for advice along the lines of get a better landlord though I appreciate that is potentially a long-term option.)

posted by anonymous to Home & Garden (15 answers total)

We had the same problem at a rental, and had to learn to live with holding down the button until the door was about 3/4 of the way closed and then letting it go just before the door touched down. Does this method work for you?
posted by Miss T.Horn at 11:59 PM on November 1, 2021

It's usually misalignment for the safety laser. They get bumped/kicked a lot, or the screws holding them into place get loose.

You can clean the lenses of the lasers, and/or loosen the screws and realign the laser.
posted by meowzilla at 12:27 AM on November 2, 2021 [7 favorites]

I’ve had similar behavior when leaves, cobwebs or other debris clung to the door bottom and triggered the safety sensor that meowzilla is referring to.
posted by jon1270 at 12:49 AM on November 2, 2021 [2 favorites]

It's usually misalignment for the safety laser. They get bumped/kicked a lot, or the screws holding them into place get loose

or spiders make houses in them and trigger them by moving about when disturbed by vibrations from the closing door.
posted by flabdablet at 2:58 AM on November 2, 2021

Our garage door recently started randomly opening and we noticed the neighbors had a new car. Apparently the garage opener in the new car opens our garage too. Their other two cars don't do this. The new car was obviously not programmed fro our garage. I can only guess that modern garage openers try multiple signals, probably for various manufacturers. We talked to them and I don't know if they adjusted it or the driver (their young son) has just stopped using his opener but we haven't had any issues lately.
posted by Awfki at 4:06 AM on November 2, 2021 [2 favorites]

I can only guess that modern garage openers try multiple signals, probably for various manufacturers

More likely is that both garage doors coincidentally share a common opening code (the key space for these things isn't huge to begin with, and some of them are crude enough to respond to any cyclic permutation of their own code) and that the transmitter in the new car is powerful enough to reach your door as well as the one it's close to.
posted by flabdablet at 4:21 AM on November 2, 2021

If it closes all the way down and then reopens, and this is it’s only pattern of reopening (it doesn’t close halfway and then reverse course), then I doubt it’s the laser sensors. I suspect it isn’t finding the closed sensor and the safety is causing it to open. The safety senses too much force and reverses course so the door doesn’t crush whatever is in it’s path. You could look for the manual for this particular opener and possibly adjust the door closed sensor. Good luck!
posted by coldhotel at 4:26 AM on November 2, 2021 [6 favorites]

Your garage door's "anti-crush" sensors are malfunctioning. It's also called the "automatic reverse", or "edge sensor".

Basically, the garage door is designed that if it senses something in the way, it will reverse course. This was in response to some instances where a small kid or pet tried to dash under the garage door and got crushed to death. This was mandated on all electric garage openers since 1993 (in the US).

Most garage openers mount the "edge sensor" on the garage door rail VERY CLOSE to the ground, and there are two of them, one on either rail. One shines a laser at the other. If there's an obstruction (no signal), they take that as "something's in the way" and opens the door again.

If this happens as the door closes all the way, then bounced back open, the door hitting the floor caused a shock on the sensor mount, which caused a partially aligned sensor to go out of alignment momentarily which caused the door to open again.

The usual way to repair this is to realign the sensors, AND to clean them (they are often fouled by spider webs and dirt). But you should hire a professional to do this. And since this is a rental, this is owner responsibility.
posted by kschang at 4:50 AM on November 2, 2021 [1 favorite]

I have also had this happen with leaves/small spider webs on the inside back of the door itself which would sometimes (but not always) float in front of the safety laser as the door was closing just before it finished it's cycle. I didn't find it right away because the problem was tucked up on the ceiling when the door was open and I was cleaning everything else.
Agreed that this is a landlord issue, but worth the quick and more thorough clean of the lasers reflectors and door. Don't adjust anything, leave that to them.
posted by meinvt at 6:08 AM on November 2, 2021

In my experience if the "blocked door sensors" are blocked, the door won't even try to close (or it starts and then immediately stops). If the door is closing (all the way) then opening back up the problem is likely in the force sensor(s). Usually one potentiometer is used to adjust this; however it's a little odd that it was OK for a long time and now is trouble.
posted by achrise at 6:25 AM on November 2, 2021 [1 favorite]

+1 you should try a quick cleaning of the sensors and the general area around the bottom of the door. That usually does the trick when we have similar issues.
posted by Mid at 6:27 AM on November 2, 2021 [1 favorite]

Yes to the force sensor or close adjustment. On mine there’s a recessed knob you can turn with a +/- and that adjusts how far the door closes. It’s on the ceiling unit., YMMV. Turning that a bit towards the - helped me. Do not mess with the springs though; they are dangerous. Let us know what happens. I’ve fixed about a million different causes with my doors.
posted by freecellwizard at 6:30 AM on November 2, 2021 [3 favorites]

I've had this issue several times with my doors over the last 15 years, and it is not an adjustment I would try on my own. In one case, it turned out that the whole motor mechanism had to be replaced. So I suggest pushing harder on your landlord especially if you can document that it opens on its own sometimes.
posted by beagle at 6:50 AM on November 2, 2021

Chiming in to second that it's probably the down force adjuster needs tweaking. On mine, it was because the asphalt at the doorway tended to heave and subside slightly with the seasons. Find a YouTube vid on your model with instructions because setting it with too much down force can strip the plastic cogs. Also 2nding not to fuck around with the springs.
posted by brachiopod at 8:39 AM on November 2, 2021

I replaced my own garage door opener about 10 years ago. Not too difficult, but occasionally the garage door doesn't stay down. That's generally fixed by cleaning the sensors. One time though it turned out to be the garage door opener being faulty. That took awhile to track down. We could hear the garage door opening but we were inside the house. Eventually got new garage door openers and took the battery out of the faulty one.
posted by baegucb at 10:28 AM on November 2, 2021