Look at the two small sensors near the floor on each side of the opening. If either light is dark or blinking, that is almost always the whole problem, and the fix is often free.
Check that both sensor lights are on and steady. A blinking light means the pair is out of alignment.
Wipe both lenses with a dry cloth and clear anything sitting between them.
Nudge the blinking sensor gently until its light goes steady, then try the door.
Hold the wall button down until the door reaches the floor. Most openers close on a held button even with a sensor fault, which confirms the sensors are the cause.
An opener refuses to close when it cannot confirm the doorway is clear. The photo eyes near the floor send a beam across the opening, and anything that interrupts or misaligns it makes the opener treat the doorway as blocked. A bumped bracket, a cobweb, a leaf, low sun straight into the lens, or a slowly sagging mount all do it. Intermittent refusal is the giveaway that the beam is borderline rather than broken. When the sensors check out and the door still reverses, the close force or the travel limit needs setting, and that is opener work.
Cleaning and straightening the sensors is genuinely a homeowner job, and it closes out most of these calls. Leave the close force setting alone, though. That setting is what makes the door reverse off a person, and turning it up to push the door past a sensor fault takes that away.
| Job | Price | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Opener repair | $200 to $400 | Covers the common failures: the drive gear, the logic board, the travel limits and sensors out of alignment. What it costs depends on which of those it turns out to be. |
Every job we price is listed on the garage door repair cost page, and what each involves is under repair services.
The safety sensors, nearly every time. If either light near the floor is blinking or dark, the beam is interrupted or out of line and the opener refuses to complete the close. Cleaning the lenses and straightening the brackets fixes most of these without a part.
Often nothing beyond the visit, because a sensor realignment is quick and we set it while we are there. When it is the opener itself, the logic board or the travel limits, repair runs $200 to $400.
Hold the wall button down instead. Most openers close on a held button even with a sensor fault, which confirms the diagnosis and gets the house shut for the night. Wiring the sensors out or taping them face to face is a different thing. That reverse-on-obstruction system is what keeps a closing door off a person, and it has been required on every opener built since 1993.
Then it is the opener rather than the doorway. The close force or the down limit has drifted, or the board is misreading. Both are settings we adjust on the visit, and it is the same call as any opener repair.
Other problems we get called out for: broken garage door spring , garage door off track , garage door opener not working , garage door will not open , snapped garage door cable , noisy garage door , garage door remote not working .
Call before early afternoon and we can usually get out the same day.
Call (650) 376-6070