It's important to always keep your home's garage door in tiptop shape to protect the things you have inside the garage from potential theft and from damage due to rainwater getting in through cracks in the door or gaps between the door and its frame. If you put off garage door repairs, you can also be putting added wear and tear on the opener and other pieces so that these wear out more quickly than they should. Note a few questions you might have about a residential garage door that needs servicing, so you know if yours can be fixed and the options you have for repairs.

Can a new motor make it quieter?

If the motor to the garage door opener is making a loud humming noise as it operates, this may indicate that it's failing and needs replacing. However, if the door itself is making a loud squeaking or scraping sound when it operates, this typically isn't the motor itself. Rusted chains or a rusted track, a bent door that isn't sliding easily along the track, obstructions in the track, or a spring that has lost tension are usually the causes of these types of noises. Replacing a motor won't help in these cases, so note the type of noise and discuss your repair options with a technician.

Why is the garage door open after I closed it?

There are two possible causes of a garage door opening after you close it; one is that the garage met an obstruction on the way down and then reversed course and opened. This is a standard safety feature of automated garage doors to prevent them from closing on a person, pet, or even your car. You can check the track for anything in the way of the door, or have a repair tech do this for you. This is also why it's vital to wait and ensure your garage door closes completely before you drive away, as it's not unusual for a track to have dirt, rust, or other debris in the way, and which cause the door to open after it starts closing.

Another potential cause of this is that someone may have copied the code of your remote. Certain devices can pick up the signal sent by your remote to the opener, and copy that signal so that another remote then works on your garage. A tech can reset that code, and then you might also upgrade to a remote that changes the code after every use so this doesn't happen again.

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