Garage Opener Help - Lateral-g Forums

HEEP · #1 01-09-2015, 05:12 AM

Alright guys,
So last night after I went to bed, all of a sudden my wife wakes me up and says the garage door had gone up. Jumped up, and went down to the garage to see that one side was all the way up. Looked around and nothing looked bad or out of place. Closed the door, turned the alarm on, and went back to bed. 3 minutes later, alarm went off. Up again, grabbed the gun, and told the wife to tell the alarm company to send sheriff out. Waited, in the hall for a few minute, and then made my way down to the alarm pad in the basement that tells me what door disconnected. It was the back door or garage door again. Went into the garage and noticed the other door had come up enough the first time to break the contact. Didn't see that so that is why the alarm went off.
So, I closed it, and cancelled the sheriff and sent all back to bed. But, I have no idea why the garage door went up in the first place. I only have 1 transmitter that works on that door, because I rarely use it. But with both doors going up at the same time is really odd. Anyone have any ideas what would cause this? Im baffled.

69hugger · #2 01-09-2015, 06:51 AM

I remember (years ago) rumors that commercial planes' radio signals could set door openers off. But todays openers are far more sophisticated.

Someone wrote in to "This Old House" & got this reply....

I talked to some garage-door manufacturers about this problem, which they call "phantom operation," and they tell me that a power surge can damage the electronics inside the transmitter. So maybe lightning really did open your door. But there could be other causes, as well.

If you live near a military base, openers can be triggered by equipment operating on the same frequency. Also, it's fairly common for a remote opener to be accidentally activated when left in a kitchen "junk drawer." The chances are low that a neighbor with a similar opener could operate yours. I'm told that older transmitters, with their nine manual "dip switches, have more than 14,000 possible code combinations for each opener. The "rolling code" security on newer doors makes it virtually impossible for a remote to activate any opener it doesn't belong to. They can have 100 million or more combinations.

Unfortunately, if lightning did scramble your opener, you'll have to get someone in to service or replace it. Your best bet would be to call a company that installs the brand of opener you have.

Good luck on this...it would freak me out if that happened to me. One or two more times of that & I would probably use that gun on them!

**camcojb** · #3 01-09-2015, 07:13 AM

One of our doors did the same thing a few times. I cleared the code and re-coded it to the opener and it's never happened again.

HEEP · #4 01-09-2015, 11:58 AM

I'm just hoping that when I get home, all the doors are not open. I think I will try the reprogramming thing this weekend on all the openers.

Che70velle · #5 01-09-2015, 12:35 PM

Bill I had one that would do that if there was ever a power blink. Like if the power ever kinda blinks, but doesn't actually go out. We would come home from work and the stupid door would be up. It did it in the middle of the night a couple of times also. I contacted my door guy, and he told me that he'd seen this happen before, but couldn't tell me why. I put up with this for a year or so and replaced the thing, and it has never happened again.

**tones2SS** · #6 01-09-2015, 04:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Che70velle

Bill I had one that would do that if there was ever a power blink. Like if the power ever kinda blinks, but doesn't actually go out. We would come home from work and the stupid door would be up.

^^This happened to my neighbors once during a bad rain storm.

Also,..do you have sensors on the edge of your doors? Maybe there's something setting the sensors off?