If your vsb door opener won’t lift the door it is attached to but you can still hear the motor running the most likely cause is simply a loose bolt which can easily be fixed.
Assuming you are checking it in daylight, push the spool with the cord on over to the left, if you can’t then this isn’t the solution to your problem. You should be able to the motor spindle turning. On the motor spindle there is a flat section that the small bolt on the cord spool should be clamped against. Wait for the motor to turn so this is facing towards you and then remove one of the battery connections.
Turn the cord spindle until the bolt is pointing towards you and lining up with the flat on the motor spindle. Push the cord spool back onto the motor spindle and then tighten the small bolt. Ideally you should use a suitable allen key but we’ve found that simply grabbing it with a pair of pliers is effective even if it does leave a few makes on the bolt.
Now reconnect the batteries and it’s ready to go. If you need to replace the cord we can also supply spare cord for your vsb or you can source it yourself – 10 or 20lb braided fishing line is suitable. It needs to be flexible, the single strand plastic fishing line isn’t suitable
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Once upon a time, not so very long ago Auntie Bev arrived at Louise's 16th birthday clutching a rather tatty box, full of holes and tied up with orange baler twine. Louise opened the box and out sprang two chickens. (And also the birth of Wells Poultry but we didn't realise until later)
Louise thought this was great although Lesley (Louise's mum) was not impressed to say the least.
Now, a cardboard box isn't the best home for a pair of chickens so next morning I was off to that well know DIY shop in search of timber with a vague idea of what a chicken house looked like. And so our first chicken house was created.
Sadly these first two chickens were swiped by a fox within a few weeks so we bought a trio of birds from a local breeder. I'm sure that is a familiar story to a lot of people - 2 chickens become 3 and then 3 become 6 and then you need more housing.....
Suffice to say, six months later I was building chicken houses full time in the back garden of a terrace house in Reading. Another year on and we moved to Wales for more space and the business continued to grow. We're now preparing to open our new workshop which will double our current space and allow us to take on more staff....
We attribute much of our success to the fact that we are very similar to many of our customers, we're content to keep a few chickens in the back garden as much for amusement as the eggs they produce. We don't have acres of land so know the limitations a back garden flock. And we firmly believe that the only time you'll need to buy another chicken house is when you need a bigger one not because it's fallen apart.
I bought a VSB door opener almost a year ago, and it has been working flawlessly. A couple of days ago it stopped opening in the morning. I replaced the batteries and verified that the motor does work. The line is also good. I can manually hold the switch, and the door will open (and stay open). It also appears to close properly at dusk. In the morning however, I have to go out, remove the cover and hold the switch down to have the door open. It has never required any sort of adjustment before. Is this something I can adjust, or is it likely that the sensor or circuitry is bad? It is all well protected inside the coop, and looks just like new.
The most common cause is a build up of dirt in the hole in the white lever. This has been more of an issue where there is prolonged rain. It can normally be rectified by taking the circuit board out of the case and cleaning the hole with a pin.