My GF's mom always gives me a hard time for locking my car when its in the garage. Well...this is the 3rd time I've gone out to the garage in the morning and the door has been wide open.

It's always in the morning. The first two times I found it open when leaving for work. These times I couldn't remember who was in the garage last and if it was closed or not...so I thought maybe it was left open.

Last night, I'm 100% sure it was closed. The GF and I arrived home after picking up dinner. We had the dog with us, so the garage door was closed before I let the dog out of the car. Garage door closes completely, I let the dog out, and we walk into the house.

I go into the garage this morning and the door is wide freaking open!!

My thoughts are...

1) Somebody has a remote programmed to my garage door, or something is interfering with it making it open. It's an older Genie garage door opener...probably came with the house when it was built in 1993...so it doesn't have the rolling code feature the newer garage door openers have. In fact, you select the code via a 12 switch DIP switch .

and/or 2) The garage door opener is intermittently failing and opening on its own.

So, I changed the code today to see if this remedies the problem. Otherwise, it's time for a new garage door opener. I've considered wiring a switch to the outlet the opener is plugged in to so I can cut the power when the door doesn't need to open...but that may be a bit drastic lol.

Has anyone else experienced this?

 

Short? (Not you-- the opener or switch )
See http://www.geniedoor.com/troubleshooting-guides.

 

When my wife and I went to Paris in January, we left the house, dog, and kids in the care of my m-i-l.

When we returned, both garage door openers were unplugged because mysteriously when we left the doors started opening themselves. Oddly, they haven't done it since we got home. I can only conclude that my mother-in-law was throwing the opener in a glove box or purse and the button was being pressed as things moved around.

Maybe something like that is happening to one of your openers?

 

That is quite scary. If all else fails, a good ol' manual lock will always do the trick.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBDrRl7d5ZA

 

^ Maybe that's it.

Hmm...

Well, there is only one remote which I bought new in July from Home Depot. That remote lives in my GF's car. She recently bought a new car and this has happened before that. The remote isn't kept near anything that could press it accidentally. I use the HomeLink remote in my TSX. I supposed one of those could be acting up. I also suppose the wired button could be shorting out, too.

If it happens again, I guess I could buy a new remote (they're $10 ) and replace the wall switch and the wiring between the switch and the opener and see what happens. It's so infrequent though...maybe it'd be easier to wire a switch to the power like I mentioned earlier . Hmm...

 

This just recently happened to me on my Chamberlen door and i replaced the wire between the door opener and the wall pad switch and the switch itself.
No problems as of yet

 

This was happening all the time at my house for a while a few years back. Believe it or not, an airplane's radio equipment can interfere and open your garage door! I think this is more likely with older models... I'm pretty sure that changing the code should help solve your problem.

 

Do you have anything else in the house that works on remote? I know someone that found out his garage was turning on his remote gas fireplace. I could see it working the otherway around too.

 

Hmm...

Nothing other than the typical home theater related remotes and one ceiling fan.

All except "TV 2" of my Dish receiver are IR. The dining-room fan retains the last state it was in, so 99% of the time it's turned on/off from the wall switch and the remote is only used when changing it's state (lights dimmer/off, or fan speed). The remote hasn't been used in months, lol.

If anything like the above was a culprit, hopefully the code change has fixed it!

 

Your garage is haunted.

 

could be that one of your neighbors has a garage door that had the same frequency as yours.

My fiancee used to work for a woman whos next door neighbor had the same car as my fiancee. She happened to mention to me one day that she was confused that every time she locked or unlocked her car, the neighbors was beeping too...so I had to explain that their car obviously had the same frequency.

 

well you could try checking out the remotes by pulling out the battery in them and just using one at a time. Doing this in the TSX might be a bit harder though...

 

I hope not! I can't move for 3 years!

Perhaps I should call a ghost hunter?

 

my parents had a similar problem. When a neighbor accross the street moved into the house they changed the opener for the garage and just by randon luck the code they used matched one of the codes for one of our garrage doors. it took us a few days to figure out why the garrage would open randomly.

 

Very odd. Other then a frequency conflict... not sure what it could be.

The two times it happened to us was during severe thunderstorms and lightning strikes caused one of the doors to open.

 

My mother had a Sears chain drive with the old 12 switch DIP switch technology. It was even older then yours, I think the remote was date stamped in the mid 1980's. It would wake the dead with vibrations and noise, definitely worn out. It would open occasionally as well, without explaination.

I bought a belt drive Chamberlain at Lowes on Black Friday ($167) last year that had all the latest tech (rolling codes ect.) The feature she likes best (for added security) is where the user can lock the unit so that it will only open by the keypad or by the fixed switch inside the garage. She states that it comes in handy when leaving town for a few days.

 

The garage door opener my parents have has the remote lockout feature. Though, I don't think they ever use it.

So far so good...but I really couldn't say. It's something that happens with months in-between incidents. So, only time will tell .

 

If I had a garage door opener that old, I'd be replacing it with a rolling code model.

 

If it happens again, it will be replaced the following weekend.

 

I hate to say it, but yeah I have to agree. The dip switch ones just aren't as secure as the rolling code models. If you go back with another Genie, you should be able to just replace the power head and use the existing screw and track.

That said, do you have a wired key pad attached to it? Friend of mine's keypad took a lightning hit. The opener is fine, but the keypad stopped working. Randomly it would trigger the door to open though. We disconnected it last year and its been fine since.

 

No keypad, just a button next to the garage door.

So far it's behaving. It's definitely something on the to-do list. If/when it happens, it's priority will be escalated.

 

I have a different problem on mine I think something with the homelink in my car.

when i pull out of the garage and into the alley, i press the button and it starts closing and i notice most the times if i move the car a few feet and then stop there, the door will bounce back up. if i just drive off i dont get that problem. it's weird.

 

Most likely a coincidence. I'd check the downward force adjustment on the power head. If its taking a little bit more force to drop the door, the force limit sensor may think that there's something in the way and its causing the door to come back up.

 

The garage door has only mysteriously "opened" once since changing the remote code. Our neighbor across the street happened to catch it and closed it for us.

My parents recently bought a new garage door opener. They bought one made by Sommer. It's a design I've never seen before. The motor mounts directly to the door and moves along a fixed chain. Here's the site:

http://www.sommer-usa.com/Garage-Door-Openers_p_10.html

Just like they advertise, the opener is QUIET! I'm thinking about ordering one. Any thoughts?

 

I just installed a Sommer in my garage today. Awesomely quiet. No more waking everyone up when the garage door opens! Got mine from Home Depot online.