Garage Door Sensor Repair in Los Angeles

A door that goes down a foot and then climbs straight back up, over and over, has not developed a mind of its own. It is obeying the two small units sitting a few inches above the floor at either side of the opening, which exist precisely so that a door never closes on a child, a pet or a bicycle. They have been mandatory on residential openers in this country since 1993 and they are, by a wide margin, the most common reason a door refuses to shut.

Sensor work starts at $89 and is usually finished within half an hour.

The Classic Symptom

The door starts down, travels a foot or two, then goes straight back up, and the opener light blinks a number of times to tell you why. Everything looks perfectly normal on the way up, which is the giveaway, because the safety circuit only interrupts closing. Look at the two sensors. One should show a steady light, usually green, being the sender, and the other should show a steady light, usually amber or red, being the receiver. A receiver light that is flickering, dim or dark means the beam is broken and the opener is doing precisely what it was designed to do.

The Obstruction Is Usually Something Ordinary

Before anything else, look along the floor between the two units at knee height. A bicycle wheel, a bin, a broom, a coiled hose, a stack of boxes that has crept forward, a bag of compost. Then look at the lenses themselves, since a spider's web across one is enough and garages in this city are full of spiders. A quick wipe with a soft cloth settles a genuinely large proportion of these calls, and we would far rather you saved the money than paid us to do it.

Sunlight, Which Is a Los Angeles Speciality

Here is the one that baffles people. A door that closes perfectly all morning and refuses every afternoon, or the other way round, is almost always low sun falling directly into the receiver lens and swamping the beam. It follows the season as well, which is why a door that behaved for two years can start misbehaving every October. West facing garages get it worst. The fix is a small shield or hood over the receiver, or swapping the sender and receiver sides so the affected lens faces away, and it is a ten minute job that we have done in every neighborhood from Venice to Sylmar.

Alignment, Brackets and Wiring

Where the lenses are clean and nothing is in the way, alignment is next. The brackets are thin steel and a bin, a bumper or a vacuum cleaner knocks them out of true easily. Our technician realigns both, checks they sit at the correct height above the floor, and tightens the brackets properly. After that comes the wiring, which is low voltage and runs along the wall where it gets stapled, pinched, chewed by rodents or cut by a shelf being installed. A break anywhere in that run produces exactly the same symptom as a blocked beam, and tracing it is what the diagnostic pays for.

Never Bypass a Safety Sensor

It is possible to defeat photo eyes by twisting the wires together, and there are videos explaining how. Please do not. A garage door closing with no safety circuit is several hundred pounds descending on whatever is underneath it, and the reason this equipment was made mandatory is a history of children killed by doors without it. Where sensors are genuinely faulty rather than misaligned we replace the pair, which starts at $129 fitted, and where the door itself is binding rather than the beam breaking, our track repair page is the relevant one. Realignment and testing on its own is $89, and either way the door is made to reverse off something solid before anybody leaves. The rest of what an operator can do wrong, from stripped gears to dead boards, sits on our garage door opener repair page.