Emergency
Garage Door Won’t Open
The first thing to establish is whether a spring has broken, because that changes what is safe to do next.
Why won’t my garage door open?
If the car is trapped and you need it out today, this is an emergency call-out rather than something to book for next week.
Look at the steel bar above the door opening. If the spring wound around it has a visible gap of an inch or two where the coil has separated, it is broken. Stop there and call a technician.
A door with a broken spring weighs 150 to 400 pounds with nothing carrying the load. Do not try to lift it, and stop pressing the opener button, because you will burn out a motor that was never designed to lift the door on its own.
If the spring is intact
- Power. Check the opener is plugged in and the breaker has not tripped. Obvious, and it is the answer more often than you would think.
- Manual lock. Many doors have a slide lock that gets nudged into place and forgotten.
- Remote and wall button. If the wall button works and the remote does not, it is the remote. See opener repair.
- Up travel limit. If it opens partway and stops in the same place every time, that is a limit setting.
- Stripped drive gear. If the motor runs but nothing moves, the gear has likely gone. Repairable.
- Off the track. If the door is visibly crooked, do not operate it. See off-track doors.
How do I open a garage door manually?
The red cord hanging from the opener rail is the emergency release. Pulling it disconnects the door from the opener so you can move it by hand.
- Only pull it with the door fully closed where you can. Releasing a partly open door lets it drop.
- With the springs intact the door should lift with roughly ten pounds of effort. If it fights you, stop, because the springs are the problem.
- To reconnect, pull the cord toward the door and run the opener. It re-engages on the next cycle.
During a Lubbock power cut
Storm season takes the power out often enough that this is worth knowing before you need it. If your only way in and out is the garage, learn where the release cord is now rather than in the dark. If the garage has no other door, an opener with a battery backup is worth considering.
Questions we get asked
The opener hums but nothing moves.
Usually a stripped drive gear or a failed capacitor, both repairable. It can also mean a broken spring, with the motor trying and failing to lift the full weight. Check the spring first.
Can I open a door with a broken spring by hand?
Not safely. It is several hundred pounds unsupported. Leave it down and call us.
The remote stopped working but the wall button is fine.
Battery first, then reprogramme. If neither works the receiver may have failed, which is an opener repair rather than a door repair.
Get it fixed today
Spring broken? Leave the door down and call. Most spring jobs are same-day.