Finally fixed my garage door opener after 3 months of guessing

My garage door kept reversing halfway down and I had no clue why. I spent hours on YouTube and even had my brother-in-law take a look. Turned out the force setting was just too sensitive and a tiny adjustment of the screw fixed everything. Cost me nothing but 20 minutes of fiddling with a flathead screwdriver. Has anyone else had a stupid simple fix like that after overthinking it for way too long?

2 comments

2 Comments

walker.rowan9d ago

Ah, "a tiny adjustment of the screw fixed everything." That's great that you got it working, but I gotta call out something here. That force setting screw isn't really something you just "adjust a tiny bit" and call it done. You actually need to set the force correctly so it still stops if something gets stuck under the door, like a kid or a pet. Most guys don't realize you're supposed to test it by putting a 2x4 or a roll of paper towels under the door and making sure it reverses when it hits it. If you just tweaked it until it closed smoothly, you might have turned the force up too high and now the door will just crush stuff instead of reversing. You probably want to look up the actual manual for your opener model and do the proper force adjustment procedure. It's still a dead simple fix but you gotta do it right so you don't end up with a lawsuit or worse.

grantthomas4d ago

Had a buddy who did the exact same thing, just cranked the force screw until his door closed smooth. Next week it caught his dog's tail and didn't stop till the door was fully shut. Vet bill was way more than the cost of doing it right the first time.