How Sunlight Can Impact Your Garage Door Sensor

Can Sunlight Impact My Garage Door Sensor?

An essential safety feature, your garage door sensor keeps your family, pets, and valuables safe, preventing injury and damage in the event your garage door lowers unexpectedly. Like most devices, this sensor can sometimes malfunction, making this issue a common garage door problem. It could be a simple misalignment of your sensor, or it could be that sunlight is shining directly on and impacting your garage door sensor.

How Sunlight Can Impact Your Garage Door Sensor

Your garage door sensor works by sending an infrared beam across from one side of your garage door to the other. When the beam strikes a receiver on the other side of the doorway it makes a connection and your garage door will function normally. However, when something disrupts the beam of light and it does not make a connection, your garage door will be set into reverse motion to prevent injury or damage to whatever is blocking the sensor’s transmission. Sunlight, which gives off a stronger infrared light than your garage door sensor, can easily overwhelm the receiving sensor, disrupting the connection, and preventing your garage door from closing.

Ways to Prevent Sunlight from Impacting Garage Door Sensors

Has sunlight interference caused your garage door to remain stuck open? You may wish to try fixing this issue yourself before calling for garage door service. You have a few options for addressing this particular sensor problem, including:

• Switching the sides of the sensors. Since one transmits and the other receives, this may fix the problem.
• Moving the sensors slightly further into the garage and out of the sunlight.
• Constructing a shade box of cardboard and securing it around the sensors.
• Purchasing inexpensive sun shields, available online, and attaching them to your sensors.

Still stymied by sunlight causing your garage door sensor to malfunction? Ensure your family’s safety, handling garage door issues on your Livermore, Pleasanton, Walnut Creek, Vallejo, Richmond, Moraga, Lafayette, or Berkeley home with the help of GDI Garage Doors.

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