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“Will not close” is three different failures that look alike from the driveway. The door can reverse as soon as it starts down, stop with a gap at the floor, or reach the floor and creep back up. Sumo Garage Doors in Westbury separates those. Sensors and a close-limit setting cover the first two. Balance, which means springs and cables, covers a door that will not stay put. Prices for each job are on the linked pages.
It starts down and comes back up
Watch the two small boxes near the floor, one on each track. Sumo lists dirt on the lens, a unit that no longer aims at its partner, a loose wire, and direct sun on the receiver as the usual triggers for a reverse while the door is coming down.
That whole check, including Chamberlain’s amber and green lights and the federal rule that the eyes have to work, is on sensor repair. Expo Garage Doors in Roslyn puts small adjustments and sensor work near $120 to $180. Sumo’s pair price is on that same sensor page. Read it there rather than guessing a number from memory.
Do not tape the eyes or pull their wires so the door will shut. The sensor page explains why an opener built since 1993 will not close normally with the eyes defeated.
It stops partway and sits there
If both lights on the eyes are glowing steady and the door still halts above the floor, Sumo names a different part: the close limit on the opener, the setting that tells the motor where “down” is. A broom handle in the track does the same thing. Look along the metal for a ball, a tool, or a roller that has walked out, then decide.
- Something in the track you can lift out with the door stopped: remove it and try once.
- Nothing in the track, lights steady, door stops at the same height every time: opener repair. Ten flashes, in Chamberlain’s chart on that page, still means the eyes. A close-limit job does not.
A door that stops because one side has dropped is not a limit setting. That is the next section.
It will not stay down
You get it to the floor, you let go of the button, and the door rises again, or it never quite settles and sits cocked. Precision says springs that do not match the door’s weight make the opener do work it was not built for. A cable that has come off the drum does the same on one side. Sumo describes a shaking, leaning door as frayed cables or a cable that left the drum.
If the bottom edge is not level, stop. Do not keep closing it. Off track and cable replacement are the two pages. If you heard a bang earlier and the door is now heavy, the spring page comes first. A heavy door that you force shut can fall once the opener lets go.
Tonight, if the garage is open to the street
Emergency repair is the page for a door stuck open after dark, including who adds an after-hours fee and who says they do not. Closing it by hand is only reasonable when the door is level and does not feel like its full weight. Precision’s off-track page says not to pull the emergency release when the door is crooked, because the counterweight is already gone.
When you call, say which of the three you have: reverses right away, stops at one height, or will not stay at the floor. Add whether the little lights by the floor are on, and whether the door is level.