Is your garage door not working and you're not sure why? If so, it could be an issue with the electronic eye along the bottom of the door. This is a safety mechanism that is designed to prevent the garage door from closing on something in its path and has been a mandated component of every garage for many years. Here is what you need to know about this safety feature of your garage door.

Why Is The Garage Door Light Blinking? 

Is the garage door stuck in an open position where the light blinks every time you try to close the garage door? It does not matter if you use the remote or the physical button near the door, since they all do the same thing in the end. This is the way that the garage door tells you that something is wrong, and it could be due to the safety mechanism's electronic eye since it is happening while the door is trying to close. You can manually disconnect the garage door to open or close it as a short-term fix, but you'll need to investigate the problem further to fix it. 

How Do You Inspect The Electronic Eye?

The electronic eye is designed to not allow the garage door to close if something is in the path, so the first thing you'll want to do is check if the electronic eye is aligned properly. The two sensors are located at the bottom of the door and need to see each other. If something crosses the path of the electronic eye and the sensors can't communicate, it is going to cause the door to not move from the open position. 

Unfortunately, these brackets that the sensors are mounted onto can bend by accident. If it looks like the electronic eye is not even pointing towards the sensor on the other side, try realigning the sensor to see if that fixes the problem. You'll also want to clean off the electronic eye. It's possible that it is covered in dirt and that is what is blocking the path of the sensor. All it may require is some simple cleaning to get the garage door working again.

How Do You Test The Electronic Eye?

If the garage door is opening and closing just fine, it is worth testing the safety mechanisms to ensure that they are working. You can do this by breaking the path of the electronic eye with a solid object while it is closing, such as a broom handle, and see if the garage door goes into reverse. If it does, then you know that everything is working as intended.

Having difficulty troubleshooting your garage door? Then it is time to bring in a residential garage door repair professional to fix it for you.