A noisy garage door opener is the first sign there may be something wrong with your garage door. First thing you want to do is check to see if it is the door or opener that is actually making the noise. This is an easy test you can do but not everyone thinks to do it first. There are three possibilities and you want to rule them out one by one. 

One, it could be your garage door opener. Two, it could be your garage door, lastly it could be the combination of the two working together. Here’s what to do to figure out which issue you are having.

Disconnect your door from the opener. You do this by pulling your emergency handle. You should only do this with the door in the closed position.  

First Test

Once your door is disconnected from the opener, hit the button and run it up and back down. Your door shouldn’t move.( if it does you didn’t disconnect it from the door properly.  Consult your owners manual for further instructions. ) 

Without the door connected, listen to your opener run, if the noise persists then your garage door opener is obviously the source of the noise. There is a few reasons why it could be loud or making a noise. 

If you have an old genie screw drive opener that’s making a lot of noise you can grease the worm gear on the rail with white lithium grease and run it up and down and it will quiet down a bit. If it doesn’t help you may want consider a new opener. 

If you have a chain drive opener and the noise is kind of a grinding noise, and the chain is sagging you most likely have a gear and or sprocket failing.  

If you have a belt drive opener and it’s squeaky you might just need to lubricate the sprocket using some white lithium grease. 

If you run the opener and it is not making any unusual noise it’s time to test the door for noise. In order to do this just run the door up and down by hand. Run it slowly up and down a couple times.

Listen for any noises and try to detect where sound is coming from. Is it the hinges squeaking? Is there a popping noise? Check to make sure the door is not rubbing the track anywhere. Metal on metal will make a loud squealing noise. Is the sound coming from the spring system? It could be bearings going bad or the springs could be binding causing a bit of a popping noise.

Try lubricating any parts  you feel are making noise, if it quiets down that will let you know that’s where the problem lies. If anything but the hinges are making noise you should call a professional out for a diagnosis. 

Lastly if the door isn’t making any noise by itself and the opener didn’t either. You now know the problem is when the door and opener are working together.  Possible reason this could happen would be an unbalanced door, loose bolts or screws on the j-arm or even just a poor installation of tracks or the opener. A professional could quickly identify the problem and help you get back on track quickly.