Garage door motor beeping: what the beeps mean, make by make

Before anything else, note three things. They're what a technician will ask first, and often they're enough on their own:

• How many beeps, and whether they're short, long or rapid.
• When they come: on their own every so often, only when you press a remote, just before the door closes, or with the door refusing to move.
• What the lights do: the courtesy light, any light on the control box, and any letter or code on a display.

Then find the pattern below. If you know your motor's make and model, its manual page has the full table.

On every motor in this table, regular beeps with nobody touching it are about power: the mains is off and it's running on its battery, or the battery is low.

What you can safely do:

1. Check the power: the plug point the motor is on, and its circuit breaker on the distribution board. During load shedding, wait for the power to return.
2. Give the battery time. ET says a DC Blue Plus that ran flat beeps for four to five hours after the mains returns while it recharges, and the door works on mains meanwhile.
3. If it beeps again soon after every power cut, the battery is no longer holding its charge and is due for replacing.

Don't unplug the battery to stop the beeping: it's what opens the door in the next power cut.

A motor that beeps or flashes back at a remote, but won't move, is usually refusing on purpose.

• Holiday lockout. It stops every remote except the one learnt to switch it, and it's easy to switch on by accident with a long press. On Centurion's RDO Digital, another remote gets three flashes and one beep; on the SDO4, a beep and three flashes; on ET's DC Blue Plus and Blue-Roll, five rapid beeps; on a Digidoor III, one beep and a flash. Gemini's motors flash the light three times and don't beep. The lockout button switches it off again: held for three seconds on Centurion's motors, and on a Gemini, one press of the wall console's lock button.
• Party mode on ET's DC Blue Advanced keeps the door open and answers every press with rapid beeps. ET's fix is to hold the door button for about 10 seconds.
• A flat battery in a power cut. A DC Blue Plus gives 15 beeps when the battery is too low to move the door, and an SDO4 three beeps after it has shut down to protect its batteries. The door then has to be opened by hand: see how to open a garage door manually.

If the motor ignores the remote completely, with no beep at all, see garage door remote not working.

• A warning before auto-close. Motors with auto-close beep or flash before the door shuts by itself, so nobody is caught underneath: three beeps on ET's DC Blue Plus, and ten seconds of flashing and beeping on a Digidoor III. That's normal.
• The beams. A Digidoor III gives two beeps when it's asked to close with its safety beams blocked or not working. An SDO4 flashes its light three times and shows E1. Clear anything in the doorway, wipe the beams' lenses, and check neither has been knocked out of line.
• Something in the way. Garage motors stop and reverse when they meet resistance while closing. Centurion's RDO Digital stops instead of reversing on the third reverse in a row, and Digidoor's auto-close switches itself off after three obstacles in a row until the door has closed.

A door that reverses with nothing in the way may be out of balance, which Centurion's SDO4 and RDO Digital both flag. More on that is on garage door won't close.

Some beeps mean the motor has found a fault it can't get past:

• ET DC Blue Advanced, P with five beeps: the limits and door profile aren't set, or the setup was left halfway.
• ET DC Blue Advanced roll-up, 20 half-second beeps and the door won't run: the gearbox is disengaged, the 10 A motor fuse has gone, or the motor is disconnected. ET's own first step is to pull the release cord down once to re-engage the gearbox; the fuse and wiring are a technician's job.
• Centurion SDO4, E3 or E4 with five beeps: the door's opening and closing times are more than three seconds apart, which Centurion reads as the door being out of balance (E3), or it ran past its maximum run time (E4).

Anything inside the motor's cover, from fuses to the control card, is for a technician. So is the door's balance: its springs hold most of its weight under tension, and adjusting them is never a DIY job.

• Centurion: SDO4, RDO Digital and RDO light flashing.
• ET: DC Blue, DC Blue Plus and Blue-Roll and DC Blue Advanced.
• Digidoor: Digidoor manuals.
• Gemini: Gemini garage door motors.

Call us if the beeping carries on after the power is back and the battery has had a day to charge, if it comes with a fault code or 15 or 20 beeps, if the door reverses with nothing in the way, or if the battery no longer gets you through a power cut. Tell us the make, the beeps and when they come. We replace batteries, repair the motors and service the doors they drive. All our spare parts are genuine, and every repair carries our six-month guarantee on our repairs. No call-out fee when we do the work. If no work is done, a R650 call-out fee applies.