Why won’t my garage door close?
A garage door that opens but will not close is most often caused by the safety sensors near the floor being blocked, dirty, or knocked out of alignment. If the door starts down and immediately reverses, the sensors are the first thing to check; if it will not move at all, the problem is more likely the opener or the door hardware.
Start with the safety sensors
Every opener made since the early 1990s has a pair of photo-eyes mounted about six inches off the floor on each side of the door. They project an invisible beam across the opening, and if anything interrupts it the door refuses to close. This is a legally required feature and it is working as intended, even when it is being annoying.
Look at the small indicator light on each sensor. One steady light and one flickering or dark light almost always means they are out of alignment, usually because something bumped one. Check for the obvious first: a bin, a bicycle wheel, a coiled hose, a bag of compost leaning into the opening.
Dust is the other common cause, and in Las Vegas it is the most common of all. A film of fine dust on a sensor lens scatters the beam enough to trip it. Wiping both lenses with a dry cloth fixes a surprising number of doors.
Low sun is an underrated culprit, especially on a west-facing or sloped driveway. Direct sunlight hitting a receiver lens at the wrong angle can swamp the beam and cause a door to reverse only at certain times of day. If your door misbehaves at five in the afternoon and is fine at noon, that is the reason.
If the sensors are clear
A door that will not move at all, or that makes a straining noise without travelling, is a different problem. Check the obvious power questions first: is the opener plugged in, has the breaker tripped, has the wall button stopped working as well as the remote.
If the door moves unevenly, sits crooked, or makes a grinding noise, stop using it. Uneven travel usually points to a cable or roller problem, and a door with a failing cable is unstable.
What not to do
Do not disable or bypass the safety sensors. They are the mechanism that stops a door closing on a child or a pet, and a door that closes only because the sensors were defeated is genuinely dangerous.
Do not adjust the opener force settings to push past a resistance. If the door needs more force than it used to, something is binding, and forcing it damages the door and masks the fault.
Common questions
Why does my garage door reverse right before it closes?
Most often the safety sensors are partly obstructed or slightly out of alignment, or the opener’s close-force setting is reacting to something binding in the last few inches of travel. Check for obstructions and wipe the sensor lenses first. If the door reverses with nothing in the way, it needs looking at rather than adjusting.
My garage door closes if I hold the wall button down. What does that mean?
Holding the wall button overrides the safety sensors deliberately, so if that works, the sensors are the problem rather than the door or opener. It is a useful diagnostic, not a workaround to keep using.
Can I clean the garage door sensors myself?
Yes. Wiping both lenses with a dry, soft cloth is safe and is one of the few garage door jobs that genuinely needs no tools. Nothing about the sensors is under tension.
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