Garage Door Opener

[Peter Foxe Smothers]

Any ideas on this one? A little history first. I did a new construction house today that had a 2 car garage and a seperate 1 car garage. They both had brand new Genie openers. On both of the doors the release handle had been pulled so that the doors could open by hand without the opener. I explaned to my client and the agent that I could not re activate / hook back up the doors and that I would note in the report that I did not inspect the openers since they were dicsconnected. They decided to hook the doors back up so that I could look at them. Heres the question. Once they finished I checked both the doors. Both of them went up with no problem. They both only went down if the push button was held down the entire time down. Every door I have seen has come down with just one push and has not required the button to be oushed down the entire time. Is this some new saftey feature or is something wrong?

[William J. Decker]

Probably didn't have the safety photocells hooked up yet. This will happen if they are not hooked up, as opposed to being mis-aligned.

Hope this helps.

[David P. Valley]

As Bill says..The safety (motion detector) eyes were either not connected, mis-aligned or something was blocking them.

[Brian E. Kelly]

Write it up as a defect Peter , reccomend adjustment by competent garage door technician.

[Erby Crofutt]

I've also seen this happen when the down force adjustment was out of whack.

[Jae Williams]

and now we know why the doors were released.

[Bud Glass]

Most modern garge door openers will not even operate if the infrared sensors are not conneced or aligned..meaning that they won't start up or down when the manual button is pushed. This problem could be the down force adjustment, something wacky with the control board, or several other things. I think it's best to report it as "Not functioning properly", and recommend professional service. While it's inherent in our breed to try to figure everytning out, it is OK once in a while to just report the condition, and not worry about the diagnosis. In my opinion, the brain damage isn't worth it.

[William J. Decker]

Bud! My man!

It jus' plain don't work.

Brilliant. Must add it to my template.

(Really. You make a good point. It isn't ours to fix or diagnose. Leave that to the 'professionals'. Pass the liability. From us and our clients.)

[Peter Foxe Smothers]

I did write it up as not functioning properly, i was just doing some thinking about it.

[Erby Crofutt]

I think that most of us do exactly as Peter did. Write it up as not functioning, recommend professional services to determine needed repairs, estimate costs, and to perform the repairs deemed necessary.

HOWEVER, we then want to satisfy our natural curiousity and try to figure out, for our own edification only, exactly what caused what we saw & how it's best repaired. That's what Peter is doing here.

[Russel Ray]

Originally Posted by bglass

Most modern garge door openers will not even operate if the infrared sensors are not conneced or aligned..meaning that they won't start up or down when the manual button is pushed.

Maybe they make them differently for the California market because I find them all the time in new construction that work quite well. Unfortunately, the force reverse rarely is adjusted properly and the photoeyes haven't been hooked up yet. But that durn door goes up and down just dandy.

[David P. Valley]

Originally Posted by ecrofutt

I think that most of us do exactly as Peter did. Write it up as not functioning, recommend professional services to determine needed repairs, estimate costs, and to perform the repairs deemed necessary.

HOWEVER, we then want to satisfy our natural curiousity and try to figure out, for our own edification only, exactly what caused what we saw & how it's best repaired. That's what Peter is doing here.

Thank you Erby.