Garage door opens only partially in hot weather

garage-door-opener

My Craftsman garage door opened works fine in cool weather or early in the morning. When the weather is hot, it opens partially, from 1/8 of the way to 7/8 of the way. Pressing the remote closes it, and pressing again it opens it, but less than the first time. Doing that again it opens even less.

Any suggestions?

Best Answer

  1. Step one - when it's hot and acting up, close the door, disconnect the opener, and open it manually. If thermal expansion is making the door bind, you need to address the basic mechanical issues of the door mechanism BEFORE you start cranking up the door opener. Clean, lubricate, adjust, or call a garage door mechanic, as apprpriate to the issues and your skills.
  2. Then go though the complete adjustment procedure for your opener, including the safety tests that are supposed to be run every 6 months or so (stops when beam broken, stops and reverses when hitting a 2x4 laid flat on the floor, closes and stops correctly when nothing is in the way, opens correctly. At this point you may adjust the force if the mechanics are correct.
  3. If you've done those things and it still acts up when hot, or if your adjustment procedure doesn't seem to work as it should if you do it when it's hot, you may have a problem (evidently of a thermal nature, or aggravated by heat) in the logic board of the opener. I had some very puzzling behavior from an opener once that appeared to have been caused by a nearby lighting strike scrambling it's little brains, and making it into a potential killer (it was trying to drive the garage door through the floor when it closed.)
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