Urgent repair
Garage Door Safety Sensors & Auto-Reverse
This is the part of the door that stops it closing on a child, a pet or a car. It is also the part people disable when it becomes annoying.
Quick answer
Garage Door Safety Sensors & Auto-Reverse: what you need to know
Automatic garage doors have two independent safety systems. Photoelectric safety beams mounted low on each side of the opening detect anything in the door path and reverse the door immediately if the beam is broken. Auto-reverse force sensing detects resistance in the door itself and reverses when the door contacts an obstruction. Both should be tested regularly. To test auto-reverse, place a solid object about 40mm high in the centre of the opening and close the door; it should stop and reverse fully on contact. To test the beams, break the beam with an object while the door is closing; it should reverse immediately. Common faults are misaligned or dirty beam lenses, corroded low-voltage terminals in damp garages, damaged beam cabling, and down-force settings wound too high so the door will not reverse on an obstruction. A door that does not reverse correctly should not be used until it is repaired. Doormec tests and repairs garage door safety systems across the Illawarra, Wollongong and South Coast. Phone 0490 774 111.
This is one we treat as a priority callout. If the door is stuck open, a vehicle is trapped, or the property is not secure, ring 0490 774 111 and say so when you call.
Signs
How you know this is the problem
- The door reverses immediately when you try to close it, with nothing in the way
- A beam indicator light flashing rather than steady
- The door closes from the wall button but not from the remote
- The door does not reverse when it meets an obstruction
- Intermittent faults that come and go with weather or time of day
Causes
Why it happens
Beam brackets knocked out of alignment by bikes, bins, mowers or vehicles
Dirty or spider-webbed lenses, which is extremely common
Corroded low-voltage terminals in damp garages near the lake and coast
Damaged beam cabling, often from garden tools or rodents
Down-force settings wound up to mask a mechanical problem, which disables the protection
Our process
How Doormec repairs it
- 01
Test both systems independently
The beams and the force auto-reverse are separate systems and are tested separately, because a door can pass one and fail the other.
- 02
Align, clean and repair
Brackets are realigned, lenses cleaned, terminals cleaned or replaced and damaged cabling renewed.
- 03
Fix the cause, not the setting
If the door is binding, we correct the binding rather than raising the force setting, because raising force is what defeats the safety system in the first place.
- 04
Demonstrate the test to you
We show you the 40mm obstruction test before we leave so you can repeat it yourself every few months.
Answers
Garage Door Safety Sensors & Auto-Reverse questions
How do I test my garage door safety features?
Two tests. For auto-reverse, lay a solid object roughly 40mm high, a piece of timber on the flat works, in the centre of the opening and close the door; it must stop and reverse fully on contact. For the beams, wave something through them while the door is closing; it must reverse immediately. Do both every few months, and especially in any household with children or pets.
Can garage door safety beams be removed or bypassed?
They should never be bypassed. They are the system that stops the door closing on a child or a pet, and on modern openers they are a required safety feature. If your beams are causing nuisance reversals the answer is to fix the alignment, the lenses or the cabling, all of which are inexpensive, rather than to defeat them.
My door reverses randomly. Is it the beams or the motor?
Start with the beams, since they cause the large majority of nuisance reversals. Clean both lenses, check both indicator lights are steady rather than flashing, and check nothing has shifted the brackets. If the beams are clear, the next likely causes are a binding door or a down-force setting that is too tight for the door as it currently runs.
Related
Other repairs you might need
Garage Door Motor & Opener Repair
Most openers we are called to are not actually faulty. They are healthy motors fighting a door that has gone out of balance.
Read moreGarage Door Will Not Open or Close
A door stuck open is a security problem and a door stuck closed usually means the car is trapped. Either way this is the call we prioritise.
Read moreGarage Door Remote & Keypad Problems
Remote faults are the cheapest problem on this list and the one most often misdiagnosed as a dying motor.
Read moreNeed safety sensors sorted?
Ring Doormec for a straight answer on what is wrong, what it costs and how soon we can be there. Standard service call is $170 plus parts, and emergency callout runs 24 hours.