Open and Shut Case

Your handyman knows the importance of preventive maintenance to keep equipment working properly, but sometimes equipment just wears out. For example, garage door openers get regular use and often abuse as well. Your handyman knows the importance of regular maintenance on the garage door, such as oiling rollers and hinges to reduce wear and tear on the motor that has to raise and lower the door assembly several times a day. Often the garage door opener motors play out earlier then they should from the stress of constantly opening a garage door that does not work freely. In a lot of cases if a piece of equipment has out lived it’s normal life expectancy, it may be time to replace it instead of repairing wasting money on repairs. This is something your handyman can help you with.

Question:

We live in a twenty-year-old house that still has the original Craftsman garage door opener. It has never given us any problems until yesterday - it just stopped working. The light comes on, but the motor does not run, or even make any noise. We pulled the cord that lets us open the door by hand, and that works fine, so we know that the door is not stuck.

Is there anything else we can check?


Answer:

The motor has a built-in breaker to protect it from an overload. If this trips, the motor will not run, but the light will still work. Look on the motor for a reset button. Hold it down for a few seconds, and then try the motor again. If this does not work, considering the age of the unit, I would think that the motor has exceeded its useful life.

You can have it repaired, but it may be a better investment to replace it. The normal life expectancy on a garage door opener is about 10 years. Your 20-year-old unit may be fixable, but at this point it may just start giving you problems and costing you more money. Door openers are not very expensive, and the new ones have better safety features.