What you need to know about Safety Sensors

Since 1993 all residential garage door openers have been required to have safety sensors, also called photoelectric eyes, and commercial openers since 2010 are required to have either safety sensors or a reversing edge to meet UL 325 safety requirements.

The safety sensors must be mounted within 6” from the floor and cannot be disabled. Typically one sensor is a sending unit and the other is a receiver creating an invisible beam that when blocked while the door is closing will cause the door to reverse into the open position. There are basically two common types of residential safety sensors we see here in Whatcom and Skagit county. Genie openers will have one sensor with a green light that should always stay lit (green) and the other sensor has a red light that will blink if the sensors are misaligned, sun interference, dirt on lens, short in wiring, one or both sensor failure, interference with another garage door opener safety sensor, or possibly a main logic board failure in the powerhead.

Liftmaster, Sears, and Chamberlain openers typically have an amber light on one sensor that should always stay lit (amber) and a green light on the other sensor that will go off if there is a problem. Repairs or adjustments are the same as listed above for Genie openers. I have been on jobsites where people have held the wall control button down (constant contact) to override the safety sensor, closed the door onto an object, and damaged their garage door costing more than the original repair would have. There is a reason for safety sensors and why building code requires them.