Garage door - round II

[MikeB]

And so it starts. Some of you may recall I had a garage door replaced

- hope the link works)

Well, it everything seemed OK, but last night the door started to refuse to close. It would go down to about 12 incehs from the ground and then reverse. In the past that meant that there were stuff haning off the bottom of the door (spiderwebs with leaves) that interrupted the optical line to stop the door from closing. However, in those cases the door would make a loud clicking noise and the light would flash 3 times. Now none of this happeded.

I unhooked the door from the automatic opener and it went down smoothly enough. Once it was closed, the opener would run down fine and relatch as well. I was baffled.

I put in a call to the guy who installed the door and he came out. He apologized and said that he forgot to adjust the opener. He made some adjustments and the door started closing again. However, now if one tries to obstruct the door, it requires significant more force before the door would reverse direction. I'm thinking this door made of 24- guage steel is substantially lighter than the old wooden door? Then is my garage door handyman trying to hide a installation flaw by turning up the force of the closer?

Are there online specs I can look up to determine the settings on my garage door opener and verify that they are set correctly? It is a Liftmaster Professional 1/2 hp.

Thanks.

[BQ340]

The opener should reverse it it detects only a few pounds of pressure. When you tried it by hand did it start bind even slightly toward the end? Usually either the tracks flare inward pinching the rollers or the track is too close to the wall at the bottom when that happens.

MikeB

[C & E]

He made some adjustments and the door started closing again. However, now if one tries to obstruct the door, it requires significant more force before the door would reverse direction. I'm thinking this door made of 24-

Too bad you didn't think to ask the man who actually installed it while he was there, willing and eager to fix his minorly flawed job. Now, a call to him makes you a PITA.

[MikeB]

What should I ask him? If he is hiding an installation defect? If he is, is he going to admit it? the guy who came out is the same guy that did the original work. He did say that he should have made an adjustment to the opener and forgot, but it is my fear that he has made he wrong type of adjustment.

I'm using this ng as a resource to validate the work he has done.

[MikeB]

Do you mean "bend?"

I'm surprised, it worked fine since Thursday last week, but started giving trouble as of last night.

[BQ340]

No, bind -as in more force to close the door.

You might see it as a "littler harder but not very much" towards the end of travel & the opener sees it as "downforce limit exceeded, reverse now"

Wood framing swells/moves with temp/humidity, maybe either or both has changed since installation?

MikeB

[hrhofmann]

Do you have the instruction booklet? It should show what to adjust and say how to do it. Most openers have one or two knob adjustments and aren't any big deal to set properly. First the door must go up and down smoothly without the opener being connected. There should be a release to undo the door so it can be operated manually in case of a power failure. Disconnect the door and see that it moves smoothly from top to bottom. It should be balanced so that it starts to close by itself when about 2/3 of the way down, and be more or less neutral when halfway down.

[Pat]

I'm using this ng as a resource to validate the work he has done.

We can't validate it because we can't examine it. Perhaps you should hire a different mechanic for a second opinion?

[MikeB]

Probably should have said "sanity check."

[Tony]

Sounds like he forgot to adjust it, then when he did, he went overboard and adjusted it too far so he wouldn't hear from you again. Little did he know that *you* know how the safety feature is supposed to work. Get a ladder and look for adjustments on it. Look for one marked "force", or "down force", "closing force". Find a happy medium between it not closing and it having too much closing force. While doing this also test stopping and starting it at different positions. Mine took a little fine adjustment there.

A quick search looks like the "Liftmaster" is just a model or line of Chamberlain openers. Find the exact model number on the unit if you want to search for a manual.