Why Is My Garage Door Sticking?
A sticking garage door can be more than a little bit frustrating to deal with. However, it’s a fairly simple issue to troubleshoot as long as you know what to look for. Dealing with a stuck garage door at your Fort Wayne home? Follow along while the professional garage door experts at Overhead Door Company of Fort Wayne offer up some of the most common causes and explain what you need to do to fix them.
The Leading Causes for a Garage Door Sticking
Before doing any troubleshooting on your garage doors, be sure to shut off power to them if you plan on doing any work with your hands near the garage door. Allowing the garage door to function normally can result in serious harm!
Issues here can range from the mundane and quick-to-fix to those that are complicated and require the tools of a professional. Let’s start with the simplest and work our way down from there:
- Debris in the tracks. Garage doors are very sensitive—they have to be in order to ensure safety. This means that any amount of dirt or debris, even a stray leaf, can force your garage door to stick. The first order of business when your garage door is sticking is always to look for obvious dirt or debris that can be removed easily!
- Foul weather. Bad weather and particularly cold bad weather can also be a common cause for sticking. In most cases, this is due to icing or frost, which will need to be thawed in order to restore the functionality of your garage door.
- Trouble with sensitivity settings. The close force sensitivity setting on your garage door can occasionally change if the screw that governs the setting is loose. If the door is exerting too much force, or too little, it can cause the door to jam, get stuck or to fail to operate completely. Check your owner’s manual to see your exact settings and adjust as needed using a screwdriver.
- Automatic garage door controls. If none of the fixes have worked for you so far, cut off power to your automatic garage door and attempt to use the pull-string to close the door manually. If it closes and opens normally, the issue likely lies with the controller or the automated open and close functions.
- Misaligned garage door. If your garage door becomes misaligned, it will most likely fail to operate at all—and if it does operate, it will get stuck. We do not recommend attempting to fix this one on your own! Fiddling with the mechanical aspects of a garage door can be dangerous, and attempting to ignore the issue can lead to more extensive damage, potentially putting you at risk for an untimely garage door replacement.
- Damaged tracks. Just as debris can cause your door to stick, so too can a dent in the tracks themselves. This can occasionally be fixed with minimal effort, but in most cases, it is wiser to leave the repair up to a professional to avoid making the problem worse.
Schedule Garage Door Repair & Replacement in Fort Wayne, IN
Still asking “why is my garage door sticking?” and not sure what to do? Contact Overhead Door Company of Fort Wayne and let our garage door repair and service pros get it handled.
You can reach us online to schedule service any time, or call (260) 205-8509 for same-day service!
