A very common call that I receive is concerning the garage door opener making a buzzing sound when the wall mount button is pressed, but nothing else happens. The trolley doesn’t move and the door does not budge. I then ask the customer the approximate age and usage of the garage door. If it is used frequently or is at least five years old, odds are that it has a stripped gear kit. The gear kit is made up of two plastic gears that move each other to engage the trolley and get everything moving. After a certain amount of uses the teeth on the gears wear and no longer catch each other. That is the buzzing sound that the customer hears. The gears are spinning but nothing else is happening.
Unfortunately, this is just something that happens with usage over time. It can also be caused by attempting to use the garage door opener with a broken torsion spring. As we have mentioned in previous blogs the torsion springs are the muscle of the door and pull it up and place it down properly. If one of the torsion springs is broken, the opener and the gear kit are forced to try to pull the door up by itself which is extremely stressing on the opener as a whole but especially straining on the gear kit. Even doing this only a few times can strip a gear kit.
Replacing a gear kit can run a customer approximately half the cost of replacing the entire opener itself. Garage Door Man always assesses the age and overall condition of the opener before discussing with a customer the best option. The last thing that we want to do is complete a repair and then have something else on the opener malfunction. Now the customer must put more money into the unit or replace it entirely. Unlike some other companies, Garage Door Man really wants to save the customer money and headaches by doing the best job possible the first time we are called out.
