How to Get Into Your Garage When the Power is Out

The majority of homeowners and their kids today have never known a time when they had to open the garage door by hand. But most garage doors in place today don’t have a backup power source. So when lightning takes out a transformer a few blocks away and the garage door doesn’t respond when they hit the “open” button they don’t know what to do. Typically they wind up calling for local garage door repairs. Fortunately, no power doesn’t have to mean no access to your garage and it doesn’t have to require a service call. Below we’ll take you through the steps to access your garage if the power goes out.

No Need for Garage Door Repair if the Power Goes Out

When the power goes out and the garage door doesn’t respond to the remote it doesn’t mean you need to sit outside and wait for the power to come back or call a garage door repair company for help. What it means is that you need to bypass the electric powered garage door opener. It’s not as difficult as you might think. Below we’ll take you through the steps regarding how to do it.

• Step 1: Stay calm - If the power has gone out and you arrive home unable to get in the garage, or you are inside the garage and unable to open the door, the first thing to do is stay calm. There’s no reason to get upset or impatient. There’s a pretty straightforward method for reclaiming the ability to open the door and we’re about to take you through it. So don’t worry. You’ll either be inside the garage or on your way out in no time.
• Step 2: Locate and pull the trigger - Most homeowners are not aware of it but their garage door comes with a switch that allows them to manually bypass garage door sensors. This can open the door in situations where the opener has malfunctioned or the power has gone out or they have lost their remote. This bypass lever or “trigger” is located just inside the door at the ceiling, right at the center point of the door. It’s comprised of a short rope with a handle on the end. There is nothing else on the door mechanism that looks like it so it’s pretty hard to miss. The handle is often red as well to make it more visible. Once you locate the handle pull it down toward you. This will put the door into manual mode by disengaging it from the opener mechanism. Once in manual mode you should be able to operate the door by hand and you’ll see you don’t need garage door opener repair.
• Step 3: Stay in manual mode - Keep the door in manual mode for as long as the power outage lasts. If there is a manual locking mechanism on the door make sure you engage it in order to keep the house secure. A manual lock may take the form of a key activated mechanism or it could be as simple as a short deadbolt that locks the door into the track. Don’t worry, leaving the door in manual mode isn’t going to hurt the door in any way. The door is actually designed to operate manually as its default method of opening. The garage door opener is an add-on. Once the power has been restored you’ll want to re-engage the garage door opener.
• Step 4: Re-engaging the garage door opener - Once the power has been restored to your home you’ll want to wait a while to make sure it doesn’t go back out again. Once you’re certain it’s back for good it’s time to re-engage the opener mechanism. Thankfully this won’t necessitate calling for professional garage door services. It’s actually quite simple. Relocate that handle you pulled to disengage the motor. Once you find it give it another tug toward you. This should reset the trolley attachment and re-engage the motor. If you find that suggestion a little confusing don’t worry, you’re not out of options. An alternative to re-engaging the motor manually is to hit the close button on the remote. This should force key features back into proper alignment. Then hit the open button and run the door through one complete open/close cycle. At that point things are back to normal.

Things to be Mindful of When Using the Manual Override

Don’t ever pull the manual override cord if the door is already open. This will disengage the door from the opener mechanism that is holding it up and the door will likely come crashing back down. If that happens you not only run the risk of someone getting seriously injured, you will also likely need to fix the garage door to undo the damage to panels and hardware caused by the crash.

If you find yourself outside the house when the power goes out simply pry the top of the door open a bit at the mid-point and slide something into the space to hold it open. Then take a coat hanger that has been elongated to act as a kind of Slim Jim and slide it through the space. Grab the handle on the release mechanism with the hook of the hanger and pull it toward you. The motor should disengage and the door should open manually. If nothing happens, either wait out the blackout or call for professional assistance.