Your garage door usually provides years of service before it will give you any problems. But it may just fail to open one day, necessitating a call to a garage door service company. It may also begin to misbehave, which is a sign of an upcoming failure. Should you see any of the following garage door problems, have the system inspected and repairs made before you find yourself stranded outside in your driveway with a garage door that won't open.

The Garage Door Gradually Opens and Closes Slower

You may notice that your garage door takes longer to open and close. It may even stick on the way up or down and take a few seconds to get past that point. Some of the reasons this will happen include the following:

• One or more of the rollers on the edges of the garage door have stopped turning and are sticking in the metal track in which they travel.
• A portion of the metal track was hit by something, bending it and causing the rollers to stick when moving through that part of the track.
• The springs have become weak and no longer able to balance out the weight of the heavy garage door.

The Garage Door Closes Completely, Then Opens Again

A pressure sensor on the garage door opener motor detects when the door is blocked by an object when the door is going down. If this sensor fails when the garage door touches the floor, it triggers the sensor into thinking there is a blockage. Since the response to an obstacle in the way is to stop and reverse the door, the system will not keep the door closed. The garage door company may be able to adjust the motor to be less sensitive to pressure, but it's possible that replacing the motor is the only way to stop this behavior.

The Garage Door Closes on Your Car

Infrared motion sensors just above floor level on either side of the garage door prevent the garage door from closing if something breaks the beam. As your car rolls out of the garage, the beam is interrupted. Even if you hit the remote control button before you are fully out of the garage, the door should not begin closing. If it does, then the infrared sensors are out of adjustment or faulty. This safety mechanism prevents the door from closing should a child or pet run across the beam. If it isn't working correctly, have it repaired as soon as possible.

Contact a service like Spring King Garage Door Repair to get these or any other problems taken care of. 

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