Garage Door Won't Close in New York

Watch what it does when you press the button. Starts down and reverses before the floor, with the opener light flashing: that's the safety sensors, nine calls out of ten. Reverses the moment it touches the floor: the travel limit or the force setting has drifted. Won't move at all, or moves a few inches and stops with a bang: stop pressing, that's the spring.

Around Brooklyn and Queens a door standing open overnight is a security problem before it's a repair problem, which is why this is one of the calls the schedule keeps room for.

None of this involves touching the spring, the cables or the opener's insides.

1. Look at the sensorsTwo small units at the bottom of the track, one each side. Each should show a steady light. Clear anything in front of them and check nothing has knocked one sideways.
2. Hold the wall button downMost openers will close the door with the button held, even when the sensors are unhappy. It gets the door shut for the night so the garage isn't open until the visit.
3. Use the manual release only if the door isn't heavyThe red cord disconnects the opener. If the door then lifts easily by hand, close it by hand. If it's heavy or drops, leave it where it is: that's a spring problem and it's not a hand job.
4. Don't keep pressingEvery extra press on a door that's binding or heavy wears the opener's gear. Two tries, then call.

A broken torsion spring is still a loaded spring. The intact half holds its tension, and there's very little holding it there. If the door is suddenly heavy or you can see a gap in the spring above the opening, don't lift it, don't run the opener, and don't let anyone stand under it. That's the whole safety brief, and it's the one part of this page that isn't a small job.

Every January the 'won't close' calls double across Brooklyn and Queens, and it isn't the openers. Cold stiffens the door: the lubricant thickens, the rubber bottom seal freezes to the slab, and a door that was slightly out of balance in October is now heavy enough that the opener's force setting trips and reverses it. Snow and grit in the track do the rest.

The fix is usually small: clear the track, free the seal, and have the balance and the force setting checked once. A door that has been through one winter like that without attention is the door that breaks a spring in February.

The opener is broken. Usually the opener is doing exactly what it should: refusing to close on something it thinks is in the way. Fix the sensor or the setting and the opener is fine.

You need a new door. Almost never for a door that won't close. Doors are replaced for rot and impact damage, not for a sensor.

Wait until morning. Hold the wall button to close it tonight. If that doesn't work, call; an open garage overnight in the city is worth an evening visit.

Around Brooklyn, Queens and Hudson County, one call gets you a two-hour slot and a heads-up call before the technician sets off. We don't buy leads and nobody on a phone judges a door they can't see.

Free estimate. Throughout New York and Nassau County, Jersey City, Hoboken, Yonkers, Westchester, Hudson County.