Dissecting a Garage Door Opener — How Does It Work?
The garage door is an essential part of any home — it provides secure, easy access to the garage and ensures your car and belongings stay protected from theft and the elements. Opening and closing your garage four times daily adds up to almost 1,500 cycles a year. With all that use, a functional garage door opener is crucial to the operation of your garage.
Despite the importance of an automatic garage door opener, many homeowners fail to understand how the device works. Understanding how a garage door opener works will help you troubleshoot any issues your opener has and will allow you to keep your garage in top condition. Learn more about garage door openers, how they work and how to fix them with this guide.
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What Is a Garage Door Opener?
Garage door openers are standard features of modern garages — they make using the garage door simple and convenient for safer, faster home access. But what exactly is a garage door opener?
Garage door openers are motorized devices that open and close garage doors. They have a switch on the wall or a remote control that lets you open and close your garage door at the push of a button. Openers typically have automatic safety features like auto-reverse and motion detection to prevent accidents and protect the door and other objects from harm.
Types of Garage Door Openers
There are four types of overhead door openers that you might come across — each one is slightly different, so evaluate all of your options carefully to ensure you get the best opener for your home. The main difference between openers is the driving utility or how they run. Some use threaded parts, while others use belts or chains. All overhead door openers use a motor that moves a trolley that connects to the door to create movement.
Check out the different types of garage door openers:
Belt Drive
Belt drives use a rubber belt to slide the door trolley. The trolley moves the door open and closed with the help of the belt. Since the belt drive uses a rubber belt, its motions are smoother and quieter, and there’s less vibration compared to other drives. Belt drives have fewer moving parts than other drives like chain drives and need less maintenance to stay in top condition.
Belt drives are low-maintenance and quiet, making them perfect for any home. They’re especially great for homes with garages underneath bedrooms and living rooms since they produce minimal vibration and noise.
Screw Drive
Screw drive garage doors have a threaded-steel rod that moves the trolley. As the rod rotates, the trolley lowers and lifts the door. Like a belt drive, it also has fewer moving parts and requires less maintenance. This rod design of this drive means it’s quiet and has smoother movement than chain drives.
Like the belt drive, the screw drive is ideal for attached garages. They require less maintenance and produce less noise so household members won’t be disturbed by the opening and closing of the garage door.
Chain Drive
Chain-driven garage openers have a metal chain that drives the door trolley. Chain drives are usually the least expensive opener option, making them desirable for anyone on a budget. However, the metal chain the opener uses can be extremely loud, making this the noisiest garage opener option.
While the chain drive is inexpensive, its loud design best fits detached garages. Garages connected to the house are often close to living and sleeping areas, and the chain drive might disturb people in these spaces.
Side Mount Motor
The side mount motor is the most straightforward garage door opener. It has no belt, threaded rod or chain — instead, the motor directly moves the trolley to open and close the garage door. This makes for a quiet, streamlined garage door operation. With the fewest number of moving parts of all drives, it’s the lowest maintenance.
Due to its quietness, level of maintenance and the low number of moving parts, the side mount motor is perfect for all garages and homes. Regardless of your home or garage’s size and layout, the side mount motor is low disturbance and easy maintenance.
Horsepower Ratings for Garage Door Openers
Horsepower (HP) is the force that moves the garage door. The larger and heavier an overhead door is, the more force it needs to move. The size, number and weight of your garage doors determine the HP your opener needs to operate the doors smoothly and efficiently. HP for garage door openers usually ranges from ⅓ to 1 ½. Here’s a quick summary of HP and door size pairings:
- ⅓ HP: Single-car garages can get away with openers at the lowest end of the HP scale. However, getting a slightly higher horsepower than necessary can reduce the strain on your opener and make garage door operation easier.
- ½ HP: This amount of HP is enough to operate sectional two-car garages for everyday functions.
- ¾ – 1 ½ HP: For larger garages with high-tech overhead door openers, you’ll want ¾ HP or more. You’ll especially want to consider going above ¾ HP if you use your garage frequently.
The Anatomy of a Garage Door Opener
Just like the garage door itself, a garage door opener has its own specific parts. The different parts of the opener work together to ensure the smooth, safe operation of your garage door so that you have an accessible, convenient entrance to your garage. Understanding the opener’s components will help you identify issues associated with opener problems and gives you complete knowledge of all the parts of your garage.
Opener Remote
The opener remote activates the motor of the drive unit. Remotes can be hardwired to the inside of your garage or wireless, so you can automatically open your garage door with ease. Wired remotes stay connected to the garage through wires and allow you to open the door by pushing a button inside or outside the garage.
Numerical keypads require a code to open the garage door. Set a numerical code and punch it in whenever you need to get into the garage. The door will only open when the correct code is entered into the keypad.
Wireless remotes are kept in cars or on keychains — they let the owner open the garage door from up to 20 feet away. Wireless remotes are great for convenient car parking since you won’t need to get out of the car to open the garage door. There are also smart garage door openers that work from your phone, giving you the convenience of a wireless opener from your smartphone.
Drive Unit
The drive unit is the box installed in your garage ceiling. It’s the main part of the garage opener. Inside the box is the motor that runs your garage door opener and initiates the opening and closing movements.
Horizontal Track
The horizontal track guides the garage door as it moves, allowing your garage door to sit along the ceiling and move back down to close with ease.
Chain
The garage door chain does a bulk of the lifting and holds the weight of your heavy garage door as it moves. Once the motor starts running, the chain lifts your garage door and pulls it along the rail so that it moves along the ceiling.
Pick-Up Arm
The pick-up arm is a smaller component that helps connect the garage door to the garage door opener. A strut must be installed along the top panel of the garage door so that the pick up arm can connect to the door. The arm helps lift and guide the garage door.
Bracket
Your garage door needs something to connect it to the garage door opener. The bracket is the connector for the system. It sits on the surface of the garage door and the pick-up arm, joining the door with the opening system.
Photo Eyes
Photo eye sensors prevent the automatic garage door from closing on people, pets and objects. These garage door sensors help prevent the door from closing on anything. One sensor is installed at the bottom of the garage door. If anything breaks this sensor’s line as the door closes, the door will stop closing and roll back up.
The other type of photo eye sensor uses an unseen line to prevent accidents. The photo eyes sit along the vertical garage door track facing each other, projecting an invisible beam. If the beam is crossed during door closing, it will auto-reverse to prevent injury. Both sensors prevent people and objects from getting stuck under the heavy garage door and should be checked regularly to ensure they’re working correctly.
Emergency Release Rope
The emergency release rope is essential to the garage door opening system. The emergency release rope is a red rope that dangles from the garage pick-up arm. If your garage door opener ever malfunctions or stops working, you can still open and close the door with the emergency rope. If there’s a power outage or your system stops working correctly, you can temporarily use the rope to get around the problem.
Some garage doors also have a keyhole that lets you use the emergency release from the outside. To use it, insert and turn the key, then pull out to pull on the rope. After this, simply lift the garage door up.
How Does a Garage Door Opener Work?
There are many different parts to your garage door opening system which can make your opener seem more complex than it actually is. The overhead door opener is simply a radio transmission system. Pushing the button on your remote or typing the code into a keypad sends a code to the receiver. The transmitter and receiver are on the same frequency as each other, so the receiver only gets signals from its transmitter.
Possible Reasons Your Garage Door Opener Stops Working
Even with proper care, garage door openers can suddenly stop working. Finding the source of the problem can help you decide whether you need minor or major repairs and will help get your garage system working again. Follow these garage door opener troubleshooting tips to help narrow down the cause of the issue:
Dead Remote Batteries
If you’re pressing your opener remote, but nothing happens, its batteries might be at fault. First, try to open the door with the wall panel. If it opens and closes correctly, your remote’s batteries probably have died.
Remote Signal Blocked
Another reason the opener doesn’t respond to the remote is a blocked signal. If you’ve recently replaced the batteries on your remote, check to make sure it’s not a disrupted signal. To test this, stand less than 20 feet away from your garage opener. If it still isn’t working, examine the opener’s antennae. Clear out any debris from the antennae and ensure it’s unbroken and pointing towards the door. If you see antennae damage, contact a professional so they can evaluate the system.
Lock Button On
Another reason the opener might stop working involves your garage’s lock button. If the lock button on the wall-mounted panel is engaged, your opener won’t work. That can happen when someone accidentally engages the button while using the wall-mounted panel.
Garage Door Won’t Close Completely
Broken springs, damaged cables and blocked tracks can all cause interference that prevents the door from closing completely. Additionally, your door might not close due to malfunctioning sensors. If the safety sensors are misaligned or malfunctioning, they could register and object in the door’s path — even when there isn’t anything there.
What to Do if Your Garage Door Opener Stops Working
You can solve some of your garage door problems yourself. Contact a professional if smaller, less-dangerous fixes don’t work or you feel uncomfortable doing it on your own. Garage doors are extremely heavy, and their components are dangerous if you aren’t an expert at what you’re doing. Always turn to professionals for repairs to keep yourself and your property safe.
If you have minor garage door issues, you can probably perform the fixes yourself. Swapping out remote batteries, disengaging the lock button, removing objects from the door’s path and clearing debris from the garage tracks are easy tasks you can do on your own. You can also lubricate rollers and tighten loose nuts and bolts if you feel comfortable with your garage door.
Sometimes, however, the solution to your problem isn’t easy or obvious. Call a garage door repair service if you can’t find the source of the issue or if the fix is a bigger task than swapping out remote batteries. Garage door technicians have the skills and knowledge to diagnose and fix your garage door opener safely and correctly.
Explore Residential Garage Door Openers from Continental Door
Improve the safety and convenience of your Spokane, Washington home with Continental Door’s high-quality garage door openers. We carry a variety of Linear and LiftMaster openers, including MyQ-compatible models that connect to your smartphone. Along with our top-of-the-line garage door opener models, we offer 24-hour emergency garage door repair services to ensure you always have access to your garage.
With over 15 years of experience in garage doors, you can rely on our experts for better garage door security and services. To request a service or free estimate, contact us online and improve your garage door quality today!
