Does my Craftsman opener need safety sensors to work?

expert EXPERT February 04, 2008

The Door Sensors are a very important safety feature as even a relatively small door and opener can do a lot of damage or cause an injury or even a fatality if accidentally closed at the wrong time. Unless your opener is quite old, it should already have had sensors as they have been mandated by law for a long time now and were already a common option for some time before those regulations went into place.

Because they are such an important safety concern, Craftsman openers that were designed to work with safety sensors will not close the door unless working sensors are attached. Without sensors or with non-operating sensors, the door would start to re-open shortly after you started closing it and may also flash the overhead opener lights.

You should be able to override the sensor circuit temporarily by holding the wall control button continuously until the door reaches the closed position. The remotes will not override the sensors since it is not certain someone would be in clear sight of the door to confirm it is safe to close at that time. The override should only be used for emergency situations however, and we would recommend that you do not use a garage door opener without working safety sensors.

As mentioned, all current opener models have sensors but even most older openers from pre-sensor days have available kits and parts to add sensors. There should be a model number on the overhead opener itself that starts in a "139" prefix. You can use that number to find the sensors for your particular model at your Sears Store or online at Sears.Com. The links below have additional information that might be helpful.