My Electric Garage Door Opens By Itself

Garage doors use radio frequencies to open and close.

My electric garage door opens by itself. Garage door openers operate on one of many frequencies and while it is possible. If you clear all debris and any buildup from the sensors near the floor of your garage door tracks but the motion of your garage door tends to be partially closing and then reversing and opening again you may have a misaligned sensor. In some rare cases a garage door will open or close by itself even if the homeowner hasn t instructed the automatic garage door opener to do so. There are a few unusual factors that can cause your door open by itself.

Below are three reasons why your garage door opens on its own and some quick fixes you can try. The symptom of this is a garage door that is in constant motion opening fully then immediately descending only to start the same cycle again. This is true only in rare cases though. Garage door openers especially old ones can be triggered by a number of things.

Here are a few scenarios we ve come across. Residential electric garage door openers manufactured after 1993 are equipped with two safety mechanisms that operate while the door is closing. The first is photoelectric and the second is mechanical. If the safety sensors and operator button are working correctly and no bad wiring or connections are found your issue may be with the control board in the garage door opener itself.

Having your garage door open when no one is home can be a huge security risk and messing with buttons and wiring can be frustrating especially if the opener still malfunctions after your best attempt to fix it. A power surge from a lightning strike or other electrical problem can cause the board to go bad as well as the transformer. Whether you re using the passcode entry the buttons inside the garage or your remote opener the openers and the garage door itself must be on the same frequency. Some people think it s from their neighbor s garage door opener.

As these wires short against the housing the electrical impulse causes the door opener to activate. There may also be loose wire connections inside the button housing itself. Your garage door most likely uses two sensors to trigger its reverse mechanism. This is actually a very rare problem of all the garage door installation problems you can have but when it happens it s usually a short in the circuit board says andrew richards owner of legacy garage doors an atlanta area garage door repair company.