How to adjust the up force on your common Lift master garage door opener.
Have you gone through our maintenance article? Do that first.
If your garage door opener has these 2 little blue dials on it, this article is for you. These are the most common openers in the SF east bay area.
Warnings!
Don’t get squished. This is a simple mechanical operation but could still be dangerous. If in doubt, just call a professional. http://www.darwinawards.com
Don’t run the door more than 10 times up and down in 15 minutes. You can overheat it! If your opener is more than 15years old, this number could be as much as 5 times in 15 minutes. It will just go dead for up to a half hour (if you are lucky) Sometimes they can be damaged before the auto-protect shuts them off. (burn out the capacitor or circuit board usually)
Up force
Why adjust your upforce –
You might say ‘as long as the door goes up, it must be fine.’ And while that’s true, it may cover a problem w/ the door that would otherwise be noticed earlier. A 1/2Hp opener will drag a lightweight door w/ a broken spring up and down for months, but it will be destroying itself in the process. It might even rip one or all the center styles right off the door!
Some other reasons –
We’ve seen children hanging from the door and riding it up!
Brooms and shovel handles getting caught, shelves left open and caught can cause damage to the door and to come off the tracks. If set properly the door would just stop before damaging itself.
How to adjust: Turn the force dial down until the door doesn’t come up. Then turn it up a little bit.
Walkthrough: Start with the open force dial at 2.5 and the door in the down position. If the door opens all the way successfully, turn the dial down to about 1. If stops halfway, go up one whole number.
Comments