We rely heavily on our garage door openers to keep life on track and running smoothly. The last thing we want is one to fail, especially at a bad time when we are not expecting it. First and foremost the best way to keep a garage door opener running for a long time is to take good care of your garage door itself. This means maintaining it twice a year through lubrication and balance and safety checks. Getting on a routine maintenance or service plan with a local garage door company is a great way to stay ahead of garage door repairs. 

Is your opener Noisy?

The first sign your garage door opener is failing is noise. When it starts to sound different you will notice, because you use it everyday. It may be getting louder and louder every time you push the button. Maybe it is starting to make a grinding type noise.Next, your opener might start to move slower and appear to be struggling. There is also the possibility that the opener will intermittently appear to lose power. Another sign failure is coming could be you are constantly having to reset the limits on the opener because it keeps trying to close too far. And lastly your remotes may be losing range or not working properly all the time. 

So when your opener starts to sound louder, or move slower, do not ignore it. Have a garage door repair company come out and do an inspection of the door. A lot of times this may be related to the springs not being balanced quite right, and a simple adjustment or even replacement of the springs will prevent damage to your opener. Getting out in front of this repair is a good idea because the last thing you want is to be trapped in the garage with a broken spring and having to buy springs and a new opener.

Get a quiet DC Motor

Another possible cause of the noise could just be an aging AC motor, most builders install contractor grade openers with AC motors that tend to get very loud over time. It doesn’t necessarily mean that there is a problem with it , but a new upgraded DC motor would definitely be a good option for keeping the noise down.\

Is your opener making a grinding noise?

If your opener is making a grinding type noise, you most likely have a gear that is going bad. When the gear strips out all the way your motor will run but the chain will not turn, this will leave you with no choice but to open and close the door manually. Also, this is a sign of an opener that is past its expected life span or it could mean a heavy unbalanced door that needs to be repaired. 

Opener loses power intermitentally

If your opener is intermittently losing power this could be sign of a capacitor beginning to fail. When your capacitor fails, it will make a loud popping sound ( like a mini explosion) and smoke will come out of the top of the opener. There is the chance that when it does blow it will spray the contents of the capacitor onto your logic board, possibly causing it to fry as well. If you have a damaged capacitor and a logic board you will need to buy a new opener as the repair cost becomes high enough it doesn’t make sense. So get it looked at. 

Remotes losing range

If your remote is starting to lose range or not working properly, first change batteries, and check for electronic interference.( LED lights are a common culprit) if neither of these are the case then most likely the receiver on the logic board is failing and you will either need a new logic board or an opener.

Opener loses travel limit settings

Lastly if your opener is constantly losing limits, you could have a failing travel module, encoder or RPM sensor, A professional would be best to diagnose this as it varies by opener brand and model, and they have experience with a wide variety of them.

If you think your opener is beginning to fail, don’t wait for it to break, call a professional and get it handled before you are stuck.