Nine times out of ten a door that will not close is mechanically fine and the opener is refusing to send it down. The safety circuit has a veto over the closing cycle, so the fault is usually a beam that is not getting through rather than a door that cannot move. Start at the floor and work up, because that is where the answer sits.
Start with the two lenses near the slab
There is a small plastic eye bolted to each vertical track, four to six inches off the concrete. One sends an infrared beam across the opening, the other receives it, and the pair has to stay in contact for the whole close. Most openers hold a steady LED on both units when they are talking to each other and drop to a blinking or dead LED when they are not. A motor head light that flashes while the door sits still is the same message in a different language.
The everyday causes are dull ones. A recycling bin leaning against a bracket. A bike front wheel parked in the beam. A bracket knocked out of line by a bumper months ago and never straightened. A staple driven through the low-voltage pair during a shelving job, which holds for a year and then fails every time the wire is nudged.
Why this tends to start in April
Franklin garages sit under heavy tree cover, and the pollen season here is a serious one. Safety sensors do not have to be blocked to stop working, only dimmed. A film of yellow dust across a lens, or a web spun over it overnight, cuts the received signal below the threshold and the opener reads that as somebody standing in the doorway. Wipe both lenses with a dry cloth, check the inside face of the housing for a bloom of dust as well, and try again. That is a two minute check, and it saves a visit more often than anything else on this page.
When it reaches the concrete and rides straight back up
Different fault. The door finished its travel and the opener decided it hit an obstruction, so the safety reverse fired. Sweep the full width of the threshold first, because a dropped screw, a length of trim leaning on the jamb or a seed pod off the trees will all do it. Then press a thumb into the rubber along the bottom of the door. A seal that has gone hard no longer squashes, so the door lands early, motor load spikes and up it goes. Weather seals at the bottom and the jamb stops are an estimated $105 to $235 fitted. Last, the down limit. The opener stores a floor position, and when that stored point sits lower than where the door now lands, the motor keeps pulling into the slab and trips itself.
When it drops an inch and stops
That is load rather than electronics. Look at the shaft above the opening with a torch. A gap of one to two inches in the coil of a torsion spring means the counterbalance is gone and the opener is trying to move the whole weight of the door on its own. Stop pressing the button at that point. Every extra cycle adds a stripped drive gear or a cooked board to a job that was only a spring.
What is yours to check and what is not
Yours: both lenses, the bracket bolts, the tracks swept out, the threshold clear, and the reversing test the Consumer Product Safety Commission asks for monthly, run with a flat length of timber laid on the slab. Not yours: the torsion spring, the lift cables, the cable drums and the bottom brackets at each corner. Those four carry the entire weight of the door and they stay loaded with the door flat on the ground. The energy leaves faster than a hand moves, which is the whole reason that line exists.
Does this need the after-hours rate
Only if the door will not close and will not stay closed, because then the garage is standing open to the street. Emergency means dispatched now at the after-hours rate. A door that closes but reverses on the last inch can wait for a booked slot in the morning, and that is the identical repair for less money. A safety sensor pair is an estimated $95 to $195 and opener repair runs an estimated $129 to $315. Guide bands rather than a quote. If you would rather somebody looked at it, the number is (615) 759-0548.
A door that will not close often traces back to a misaligned track or a failing sensor rather than the opener itself, and Franklin's terrain makes both more likely in certain stretches. Out toward Leiper's Fork on Old Hillsboro Road, gravel drives near Puckett's Grocery shift with the season and pull garages out of square, while homes off Arno Road near College Grove deal with the same settling on longer, less-traveled lots. The licensed pros we connect you with check track alignment and sensor wiring before touching the opener.