Seeking garage door advice

[Dave]

I have a 2-car garage with a wood door on the front. The opener was replaced within the past year, but the door is old.

Within the past week or so, since the weather turned colder (

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, Disengage opener and manually open/close door to see if it feely moves up/down. The spring tension is almost in neutral so you should be able to open of close the door with touch of your hand. No pushing/pulling needed really. I replaced wooden sectional door with Steelcraft foam core insulated door. It has a baked on painting matched to house color, has better rubber seals between sections and at the bottom. Cost of the door was ~900.00. Tony

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Cold usually shrinks. If it is moisture staurated, freezing water will expand it.

A few years back I replaced our wood door with an insulated metal one. The salesman though I was nuts to spend the extra $ for an insulated door or an unheated detached garage. Things change though. The insulated door was more rigid, thus one big decision maker. I've since converted the garage to a workshop and I do heat with propane when I'm out there I'm not sorry I spent the extra. I've also added other insulation. The paint is supposed to last 20+ years and it does not swell like wood. The brand I bought was from Overhead Door, but there are other well made doors out there. Ed [e-mail]

[Steve]

It does sound like you have some binding in the door section or against the jam..

Try operating the door without the opener attached.. If it operates freely, the binding is being caused by the opener..

If the binding is only minor and you aren't able to correct it a the source and you are not ready to replace the door right now, try adjusting the the opener force sense cut out.. On my previous Sears this adjustment was a screw inside a hole in the back of the unit..

As much as I like wooden doors, I opted for a metal door since I now live in the Pac. NW where it is very damp.. All of the wooden doors I see, that are several years old, are saging, bulging or are deformed in some way..

[tflfb]

Replace the door with a steel insulated, if you decide to.

[SQLit]

look on your opener.... are there adjustments for force? up and down.... turn the knob 1/4 turn if there are.

Lube all the moving parts with Triflow, or some silicone lube that works in low temps.

[jim]

we had a similar problem with a single garage door, when it got cold the sears garage door would not open it.. it needed some help to bring it up by hand.. as the sun came up and beat on the door at 11-12 noon the door opened and closed fine.. found out it was the dirt/grease on the screw drive.. took the screw drive down and cleaned it up with spray on auto brake cleaner and a wire brush.. the dirt/old grease was on there like a putty.. it really held the door back.. after the cleaning it worked fine... never had any problems with it since.. look to see if you have that problem or it might be the expansion or contraction of something else with the cold weather(with me it only got down to about 40 degrees, but that was cold in the south...hope this helps.)

[Doordoc]

I would suspect that the door is reversing from coming in contact with the door molding or jamb as the door closes. The simple fix & to keep a tight seal is to rub an old candle (wax) along the inside edge of the door molding completely around the opening. Do not plane the wood. While this may resolve the reversing problem the gaps will stand out like a sore thumb from the outside when the door is completely closed.

Doordoc

[despondent]

Search for the recent thread (started by me) titled "Another Craftsman Garage OPener Start/Stop Problem with Partial Solution".

In my case, when I disconnected the door, the opener still stopped and started. This ruled out a door resistance problem. Throwing the up/down forces to high or max made the door work again but didn't fix the root cause. Lubing the chain with white lithium grease spray and spraying the gear assembly with same solved the problem... door goes up and down fine at low force.

The spray can be had from Home Depot for three bucks or so... do a search at homedepot.com for it.

[Ace]

I think your problem is with your old door. You said it is an old wooden door. I bet it weighs a ton and is a real strain on your opener. The newer doors are much lighter in weight. I would replace the door if it were me. Those who complain about Sears openers I believe are wrong. They are Chamberlain openers and are not made by Sears. Chamberlain sells the most openers in the industry and have numerous brand names put on them. I think they even make them for Stanley.