An opener that has stopped working is usually one worn part, not a dead machine. We repair every major brand, and we will tell you honestly when a repair is not worth doing.
Symptoms
Openers fail in a small number of recognisable ways, and the symptom usually names the part. Here is what each one normally turns out to be.
Most often it is not the opener at all: a broken spring leaves the door far too heavy for the motor, so stop using it and leave the door closed. If the springs are sound, the usual causes are a start capacitor or a stripped drive gear, and both are repairs rather than a new opener.
Why an opener hums and will not move ↗The safety sensors near the floor are misaligned, dirty or catching the afternoon sun. If the sensors are fine, the close-force setting has drifted and needs resetting properly.
Travel and force limits explained ↗That split tells you the motor and the door are fine. It is a remote battery, a lost pairing or a receiver problem, and reprogramming takes minutes.
Remote dead, wall button fine ↗Check the outlet and the breaker first, because an opener on a tripped circuit is completely silent. If the motor DOES run and only the door stays put, that is a different fault: someone has pulled the red emergency cord and the trolley is disconnected. Silence with good power is usually the logic board.
When the logic board has failed ↗An overheating motor cuts out and comes back later, and a worn gear slips under load. Both get worse, and both are far cheaper to fix before the opener strands you.
Drive gear replacement ↗Usually a weak signal at the ceiling rather than a fault in the opener. Worth sorting out, because an opener that will not connect is also not telling you when the door has been left open.
Fixing opener Wi-Fi problems ↗Understanding
A garage door opener is not a lifting machine. On a properly balanced door the springs carry essentially all of the weight, and the opener only has to overcome friction and guide the door up and down. A half-horsepower motor moving a 200 pound door is only possible because it is not really moving 200 pounds.
So when an opener fails, the first question is whether the door made it fail. Worn rollers, dry bearings, a door slightly out of balance, or springs that have weakened with age all put load on the opener that it was never designed to carry. The motor runs hotter, the drive gear takes more torque than it should, and the nylon teeth strip. Fitting a new opener to that same door buys a few years and then the same failure again.
The parts themselves are mostly repairable and mostly stocked. Drive gear kits, start capacitors, sprockets, safety sensors, wall controls and receivers are all common items. Logic boards are the awkward one, because the board is the most expensive part in the machine and on an older unit it is a large fraction of a whole new opener installed.
Age is the honest dividing line. Under about fifteen years with one failed part, repair it. Approaching twenty, or a dead motor or board, replace it. And many openers made before 1993 have no photo-eye sensors at the floor at all, which is a safety problem no repair can fix.
The Repair
The first thing we test is not the opener. It is the door, because a door that is out of balance is what kills most openers.
Pricing
Real 2026 ranges for the London area. A row naming one job is the all-in price for it before HST: the parts, the labour, the visit and the safety tests afterwards, on a typical residential door.
| Common opener repair | Typical cost |
|---|---|
| Remote or keypad reprogrammed during another repair | $80 to $120 |
| Safety sensors realigned or replaced | $125 to $250 |
| Drive gear kit replaced | $150 to $250 |
| Logic board replaced | $250 to $350 |
| Service call on its own | $85 |
| New opener, supplied and installed | Typical cost |
|---|---|
| Chain drive | $525 to $625 |
| Screw drive | $550 to $700 |
| Belt drive | $600 to $800 |
| Smart Wi-Fi with camera and battery backup | $750 to $1,050 |
| Wall mount (jackshaft) | $875 to $1,200 |
Your garage may sit outside these ranges. Door size and weight, spring rating, how much has been damaged and how easy the garage is to work in all move the number, and we tell you before we start, not after. A new opener price covers the unit, the rail, remotes, the wall control, the safety sensors, mounting, setup and taking the old unit away. There is more on choosing between them on our openers page and in the installation cost guide.
Service Area
We cover London and the surrounding area: St. Thomas, Strathroy, Dorchester, Komoka, Ilderton, Lucan, Belmont and Thorndale. The prices on this page are for the London area; somewhere further out can carry a small travel charge, and we tell you that when you book. If you are just outside the area and not sure, call 519-619-7901 and ask. We would rather tell you straight away than have you wait for a callback that says no.
Questions
Under about fifteen years old with one failed part, yes. Approaching twenty, or with the motor or logic board gone, replacement usually wins, and many openers that predate 1993 have no photo-eye sensors at all, and one of those should be replaced on safety grounds regardless.
All the major ones, including Chamberlain, LiftMaster, Genie, Craftsman, Wayne Dalton, Linear, Lynx and Stanley, whoever installed it originally.
Nine times out of ten it is the photo-eye sensors near the floor: knocked out of alignment, dusty, or with the sun shining straight into the receiver. If both sensor lights are steady and it still reverses, the close-force limit has drifted.
Most often a broken spring, in which case the opener is fine and the door has simply become too heavy for it, so stop using it. If the springs are sound, it is a failed start capacitor or a stripped drive gear inside the opener, both of which are repairs.
Yes, and it is usually the cheapest thing we do, at $80 to $120 before HST for the programming itself. It is nearly always done while we are on site for something else; if it is the only reason we come out, it is booked as a service call. If you have lost a remote, we can also wipe every code the opener holds and re-pair only the remotes you still have.
Not necessarily, but a heavier insulated door on an old half-horsepower opener will shorten its life. We check that the opener can handle the new door before anyone commits to anything.
Tell us what it does and what it sounds like. Most opener faults are identifiable over the phone.
📋 Book an Opener Repair 📞 Call 519-619-7901