Why does the garage door opener not open the garage door when the outside temperature is over 95 degrees?
Question:When the outside temperature reaches 95 degrees and over the garage door opener does not open the garage. Any ideas and how I could fix it other than replacing the entire thing?
Answers:
If you get up on a ladder in your garage on a hot day, you will start dripping with sweat. It is so much hotter near the ceiling in your garage than at head level.\
Your garage opener is probably in 120 degree heat up thee and it has a heat sensor that turns it off when it gets too hot to stop any fires.
What you need to do, is to ventelate your garage in some way to at least let the air move and not create such a hot environment up near the opener head.
You can put a screen on the side door and leave the door open on hot days and let the door not close all the way but leave it up just a few inches to let air come in.
I put a screen vent at the front above the door with a louver cover.
You will have to find some way to either move the air around a little , even a portable fan left on low will do that.
there is nothing wrong with the opener, it is supposed to shut down when it senses intense heat.
Dave S's answer is very good, but if your garage is getting that hot near the ceiling, then you should get some roof vents in it. Besides cooling down your opener, you will extend the life of the roof. I have seen many roofs that needed to be replaced earlier that they normally would because of lack of ventilation in the garage. Houses are vented in the attics and so should garages.
Now, does the opener not work at that temperatures when using the remotes and/or hardwired push button or just the remotes? Could also be that the batteries in the remotes are getting overheated and failing also - extreme cold does the same with the batteries.
Maybe place thermometers in the garage - one near the opener and one near the middle of the wall. Then you can tell if you are having that much heat build-up in your garage. Even on a cooler but sunny day you should be able to tell this - there will still be a substantial temperature difference. If there is a difference, than the heat sensor is the problem and you will need to reduce the build-up. If there isn't a major difference, then there may be some other issue with the opener when it gets that hot.
I hope that this has helped you with your question.
Although the above answers are true, there may be a much simpler solution to your problem. Depending on the age of your opener you may have an issue with the "starting capacitor" inside the opener. These devices (shaped like a small soda can) hold a charge to initiate the movement of the opener's motor. When these devices get too hot the opener will not function until they cool back down. It may be that your unit's capacitor is getting close to worn out (if your unit is fairly old) and cannot handle the extra heat. Starting capacitors cost about $8 - $15 and are easy to swap out. Let's hope this is the case for you!
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