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No, it’s not something from the horror movies; garage doors really can open and close on their own! It might sound comical but wait until it happens to you! You might be inside the house making a sandwich for lunch. You hear the garage door start to open. You “know” it’s your spouse or partner; after all, who else has a garage door opener like yours? You finish making your sandwich; should you make your partner one, too? No one comes in. What’s keeping them? You go to the garage and look inside. The garage door is open but no car is inside. What gives?
Each garage door opener unit has its own frequency so that it can respond to your remote. The main unit and the remote communicate via this frequency so that when you tap the open or close button on your remote, it actually happens. Now, if someone else has the same frequency as yours, their opener and remote will respond accordingly. This means that their remote can open your garage, and vice-versa! These remote anomalies only happen on older pre-1993 models. If yours is newer, it uses a different system of rolling frequencies that change all the time. The older openers have static codes and far fewer frequencies so if someone changes their code, they can accidentally program it to match yours. So, what’s the solution? Just contact your neighbor and decide between the two of you which one is to alter their opener code in order to be different. How can you tell which neighbor it is? Easy; who is coming home or leaving when your garage door mysteriously starts acting like your house is haunted!
Don’t panic; there’s hope! If your garage door opener unit is post 1993 and you are experiencing unusual opening and closing activity, there are things you can do to diagnose the problem and stop it. Start by checking the battery in your remote. People often think that either the batter is good or it’s not. Not true; your battery may be partially drained and thus give off a random signal that in turn triggers unusual garage door activity. That’s right; the culprit could be your own remote! This weird garage door activity could also be caused by a neighbor’s remote if the battery is low.
To make sure that your battery is good; test it. Use a home tester if you have one. If not, they are inexpensive and easy to buy both locally or online. You can even pick up a good used one at a garage sale if you want. Many local stores offer free battery testing so that’s one smart way to find out if yours are fully powered or not. While you are at it, check your remote for battery leakage, as well. Sometimes batteries leak their acid and it can get on the terminals and affect the signal sent. If yours are leaking clean them using a cotton swab dipped in vinegar or lemon juice. This offers gentle cleaning that can remove the battery acid and along with the new battery, can give your opener unit a strong, valid signal.
You might also have an electrical short in one of your remotes or in your wall button. A short like this can cause your garage door to open again after fully closing. Imagine backing out of your driveway and watching your garage door close and then open back up as you drive off! Here’s an easy way to see if the short is in your transmitter. Take out the battery from your remote and operate the garage door using the wall button instead. If it works, that’s great, it was your remote. If it doesn’t the short is located in the circuit board, the wall button wiring or the button itself or in the wired keypad. The usual method of finding where your short is located is to try each part and do a kind of process of elimination for each one. You can do this yourself if you know how. If you don’t, you can either refer to your owner’s manual or if you don’t have one, you can find the PDF form of it online by using the keywords “owner’s manual” along with (brand and model number) in the search bar of your favorite search engine. There are also many online videos that show how to check for this. Don’t worry; it only sounds complicated but once you’ve done it, the next time will be a breeze.
Like anything else, do it yourself jobs can either be a fun past time or a real chore! How much is your time worth? If working with your hands and doing fixer types of tasks are agreeable, by all means go ahead and do them. At least check your remote’s battery yourself or find that clueless neighbor with the same remote frequency. If those tasks do not get the results you want and your garage door still opens or closes on its own, it may be time to call in a garage door company.
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Here at Lilburn Garage Door Repair, we recognize the significance of a properly functioning garage door.
