“I know I shut my garage door” or “I was sitting in my family room and heard my garage door open and no one used the remote to open it!” … No your not going crazy. Sometimes garage doors will open and close mysteriously.  It’s really not a mystery because something (or someone) will cause it to open or close. When a garage door opens on it’s own, trying to figure out the mystery may be more challenging so our lead Service Technician Dan Shearrer has listed below several reasons why your garage door may open on it’s own.

Do I need to call Ghostbusters?

• An Old Opener with Dip Switches – someone may have a remote that has the same sequence of switches that you have.
• A Rotating Code Opener –  the chances of somebody having the same code as you are less, but still possible. You can change the sequence of switches on your opener and match them on your remote to change your code and with a rotating code opener you can clear all the old coding and recode your remotes.
• A Pinched Wire That Controls The Wall Button – If the wiring runs through the ceiling and comes out at the wall button it may have a break in the wire somewhere causing the door to activate if the wires have become exposed and touch each other.
• A Faulty Wall Console – First disconnect the wiring from the wall console and see if this solves the issue and if so replace the wall button. If the issue is still there check the wiring for the wall console.  To check if the wiring is bad simply disconnect the wall button wire from the back of the motor if the door stops opening by itself then you know the wiring is bad. If this stops the issue then a new wall button wire needs to be installed. It can be run externally by stapling the wire along the ceiling and down the wall to the wall button.
• A Faulty Circuit Board – If all the other methods listed above have not corrected the issue then the circuit board may be bad on the opener. Depending on the age of the opener sometimes the circuit board can be replaced. If the opener is older replacement parts may not be available any longer and the entire garage door opener may need to be replaced. If your in the market for a new garage door opener click here to see what is available.

Recently we had a customer in McKinney call because her garage door would “open on it’s own” and come to find out they had left a remote on top of the dog kennel. When the dog jumped on top of it he would hit the button on the remote. Now the garage door of course will open but the dog wasn’t smart enough to close it!

SO….. the last tip is make sure there is No Garage Door Remote in a drawer or on the counter where it can be bumped or pushed by accident.

After checking everything in the garage and the garage door open on it’s own, Call a Garage Door Professional that has the ability to look in places you may not be aware of to solve the mystery.

Dan Shearrer is a Service Technician for A1 Affordable Garage Door Services and has been out in the field serving our customers for over 5 years. He can usually figure out any problem the homeowner may be having with the garage door or the garage door opener.