help with an uncommon garage door opener problem?

Question

My home garage door has been without a working opener since we purchased our house a while back. we bought and installed a 1/2HP chain drive unit from Sears, and hooked everything up correctly. the door is a large 2-car garage single opening (I think it's between 12-16 ft) segmented door with a dual track system( the top segment's upper guide wheels ride on a separate track than the rest of the guide wheels) and it works just fine on the way up...the problem is, when you press the button to close the door again, the unit pushes the door to about 3/4 closed, and then instead of closing the top segment, begins pushing down on the door itself, bending the top segment and the chain drive assembly. I know that the opener needs to continue pushing straight forward rather than beginning to apply downward pressure to close the door, I just can't figure out how to accomplish that. I've had this problem for 6 months now, and I can't figure out how to fix, although I'm sure it can be done, as there was a working garage door opener installed when the previous owners lived here

Answer 1

The track system you describe is known as "double low headroom". This is used when there is not enough headroom above the door opening to allow for normal tracks. Sometimes it can be a challenge to get the opener to work properly on these types of doors.

The most common reaons for the problem you describe is that the springs have too much tension on them, requiring the door to be "forced" down, rather than "eased" down by the opener. The weight of the door should pull it down.



Second, there should be a reinforcement strut on the top section. Usually, they are mounted at the very top of the door, but with low headroom setups, they have to be mounted lower, beneath the top fixtures. It's also advisable to add a second, shorter one (or heavy-duty angle iron) across the intermediate struts (left-of-center across to right-of-center) to add additional bracing.



Your best bet at this point is to call a local garage door company for assistance. For the price of a service call, you can (hopefully) save yoursefl some expensive damage.



I wouldn't recommend the home centers, but an actual garage door company.

Answer 2

Do you all have a similar make and variety of opener? How a approaches away are the affected friends? Do all of them open mutually? Does every person discover theirs open section way? And even as and in the adventure that they do are each and each and every of the doors open section way? Did the topics commence even as the hot opener develop into put in? and would the hot one be a Genie? would all something else be Chamberlains? attempt to come across a variety # so i will estimate the openers age. And is the hot one having issues or did it provide up? I absolutely have considered Genie Intellicode door openers reason self operation of older Chamberlain openers. This handed off even as i develop into status contained in the storage.

Answer 3

Garage door openers are difficult to install properly. For $100 Sears would have had it installed for you and the work guaranteed. Time to call a repair man before it is damaged beyond repair.

Answer 4

Gork is correct- on the side of of the opener there are adjustment screws you can use for adjustments of up and down parameters of the the door-- at the back of unit there are also adjustments for force-- check owner's manual -- not rocket science but frustrating--

Answer 5

There are tension screws on the left side of the motor unit as you face it from the back. There are also tension screws on the back of the unit, but the ones you want are on the left side. Reduce these all the way then gradually increase until operation is correct.