Why Won’t My Garage Door Open?
When you arrive home from your busy day, the last thing you need is to find that your garage door won’t open. Before you call a garage door repair company to come and see what the problem is, you can possibly save money by checking the garage door yourself. We’ll lay out a few steps for you to go through and diagnose why your garage door isn’t opening.
Before you do anything, make sure your garage door is all the way down in the closed position. Some attempts to open the garage door may leave your garage halfway open. It’s important to fully close it before diagnosing why it won’t open all of the way.
With the garage door all of the way down, you should be able to see garage door springs. Your garage door may have one or two springs, and sometimes up to four. These springs are normally under tremendous tension in order to be able to lift the garage door. If one or more of your springs are broken, call a professional garage door company to have them safely replaced.
If your garage door doesn’t have any broken springs, then the next thing to check would be the cables on the side of the garage door.
If the cables on either side of your garage door slip off of the drum, your garage door may not open properly, or at all. The cables are necessary for the springs to be able to pick up the garage door, so you’ll need a garage door technician to come get them back on the drums.
If your garage doesn’t have a broken spring and the cables are secured on the drum, then you may just have a minor issue. If your garage door has an automatic garage door opener attached, see if the wall button or motor are giving any error codes. If there’s an error code, search your owner’s manual or online for information. Next, you’ll want to release the garage door from your opener and see if you can lift it manually.
To do this, check for your release cord, which should be a red pull string hanging down near your garage door opener rail. Typically you can release the door from the opener by pulling the release cord either straight down, or at a 45° angle. Once the garage door is released, and nothing is obstructing the door, try to lift the door up manually.
If your garage door still won’t open, make sure the manual lock is not engaged. Typically, this lock is disabled whenever a garage door opener is installed, but some garage doors still have the lock operational. If the manual lock is engaged, the door will not open.
If your garage door still won’t open, then it may be time to check with a professional garage door repair company to get your door fixed.
5 Comments
Hannah Storm
May 18, 2022thank you so much!! the slide lock on my garage door was engaged so my garage door wouldn’t open! my kids must have locked it and I didn’t pay attention to it until i read this article – thanks 🙂
Cory
May 24, 2022Glad it helped!
Larry H
May 23, 2022Lol thanks… my spring was broken
Anthony K
May 24, 2022my garage spring is broken. what do I do next?
Cory
May 24, 2022Hey Anthony! If your garage door has a broken spring, you’ll need to have a company or professional come out and replace it!