Garage door safety sensor

Garage Door Safety Sensor

If you own an automated garage door in Westchester New York, and you are using an electric opener to open and close the garage, you should check and make sure that the opener also include a safety feature like safety sensors. The safety sensors are there for protection, in case a person, your pet, or even your car, will be placed at the door’s path while it is automatically closing.
The safety sensors are not an option. It is a requirement by a federal law, which demand that every overhead garage door to include a safety feature. If your garage opener is very old, it is possible that it was installed before the requirement for safety sensors became official and required by law, and it also possible that there is no way to install safety sensors and synchronize them to your current opener. In that case, we recommend you to replace the unit and install a new one, which will include safety sensors. It is for your and your family protection.
We will not service an automated garage in Westchester that doesn’t have safety sensors. We sometime receive calls for service from people who use an electric opener, but that doesn’t have safety sensors installed, or that their safety sensors are installed in a wrong way, which doesn’t allow them to do their job and prevent the door from closing when something is blocking it. In that case we will have to reinstall the sensors in the right way before we will repair the garage. Safety is something we will always follow, and instruct our technicians to follow the safety guidelines, which may seem unimportant at some time, but that one case when they protect from injury, or even save life is enough that we will follow them.

Safety Sensors Troubleshooting Westchester NY

We know that the safety sensors can be the reason for many issues with opening and closing the garage. But the only reason for that is that they were installed by someone who isn’t professional enough. When the installation is being performed by professional technician, who have experience in installing and repairing garage safety sensors in Westchester County, there is no reason to experience issues with the safety sensors.
But even you are experiencing issues due to safety sensors issues, whether it is a Lift Master opener, Genie or any other brand of garage opener, the repair is relatively simple, and you can easily do by yourself. The first thing you need to do, is to make sure that the issue is indeed due to safety sensors issue.

Remote opener

Is it a safety sensors issue?

Usually, if you are trying to close your garage, and the door closing partly and then reverse to open position, and in some openers such as Lift Master the opener is blinking, signaling that something is wrong, you may have a problem with the safety sensors. To understand that, you first need to understand how does the garage safety sensors work?
The way the garage safety sensors work, is with invisible laser beam between the safety sensors, so whenever something is crossing that laser beam or if the sensors were moved from where they are installed, or if they were damaged, or if the cable which connect them to the opener was cut, they will “tell” the opener that something is wrong and the opener will not close the door. To make it simple, if the garage opener will not get a signal from the safety sensors that the open is clear, and that it is safe to close the door, the opener will not close the door.

 

Why the safety sensors stopped working?

There are many possible reasons why the garage door safety sensors stopped working, and we would like to go over some of them. This is just a partial list, since there are too many possible reasons to list all of them here. We once went to fix garage door in New Rochelle, and we found that the safety sensors were installed in a way that they didn’t do what they were supposed to do, and were installed up in the ceiling just to allow the opener to work. This is both illegal and dangerous.

  • The sensor was accidently moved. If the safety sensors aren’t aligned, and facing each other, they will prevent the opener from closing the door. In that case (unless something broke) all you need to do is to simply move the sensor back to the way it originally was, so its lens will be aligned with the lens of the other safety sensor.
  • The lens is covered with dirt. Sometime all you need to do to make the sensors work again is to clean the lenses from dust, dirt or mud, which block the laser beam and prevent the sensor from working.
  • The cable accidently cut. Many time during our garage services in Westchester County, we see that some people tend to put next to the safety sensor the garbage can and their other objects like gardening tools and other tools. When they remove the tools and put them back, they sometime accidently cut or disconnect the wire and disconnect the sensor.
  • Physical damage. If your sensor broke (hit by a car or bicycle for example), or if there is a water damage, the sensor will not work and will probably need to be replaced.

     

  • How to repair the problem?

    Some repairs are very simple, and can take less than a minute to fix, and some require some knowledge and tools, and may even require replacing the safety sensors. The first thing will be to locate the reason for the problem, and then fix it. In case you will have to replace the sensors or one of them, you should contact a garage door supplier in Westchester County to provide you with the right safety sensors that will match your opener.

  • If the sensor was moved. Simple put it back in place. Each garage opener brand supply different sensors and different methods to adjust them but usually it is just to unscrew the sensor and adjust it.
  • If the cable cut. Each case is different, but usually reconnecting the wires the right way will solve the problem.
  • If there is dirt on the lens. In that case simply clean the lens and remove the dirt or the dust.
  • If the sensor broke. Replace it with a new sensor. There are many types of openers and many types of safety sensors, so consider contacting a garage door technician in Westchester to replace the sensor for you.
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    Never remove the safety sensors

    Sometime we are being asked by a customer to remove the safety sensors, since he prefer to use a door with no safety sensors. We train out technician that in those cases they should both refuse to do that, and explain the customer why he shouldn’t do that. They are there for protection, and when installed by a pro, they shouldn’t give you any hard time, and you should basically forget about their existence, beside when you will do the maintenance, and include a safety check during the process. Whether it is a garage door in Stamford CT, or a garage door in Fairfax Virginia, every automated garage door, residential or commercial, must include safety feature.
    J&C Garage Doors And Gates offer same day garage do services in Westchester County New York including safety sensors repairs and replacement.

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    For garage safety sensor repair in Westchester New York

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