Reasons Why Your Garage Door Won’t Open

During the winter, the pairing of snowfall and freezing temperatures can cause trouble for your garage door. Chances are it might end up getting frozen shut, which takes some effort to free. But what do you need to do during other times of the year and your garage door won’t open?

Garage doors can freeze shut when too much snow accumulates in front of the door. When you neglect to clear that away, you create the possibility for a problem. To free your door from the ice, you will first want to disengage the garage door opener from the garage door by pulling on the red emergency release cord. After that, inspect the interior of your garage door for signs of broken components or frozen parts.

Try to open the garage door carefully by hand. If it still isn’t coming free, you can use a hammer and a piece of 2×4 wood to tap the bottom of the door gently, hoping to loosen it. When it comes free, lift it about four feet up so it stays open, and scrape away any patches of ice remaining in the threshold.

When ice is not the problem, then things can get more complicated. If you are lucky, the only problem is that something is blocking the photo eye, which detects if an object or person is blocking the garage door, preventing it from opening or closing. Besides that, you might have a problem with the parts.

There is a chance that the problem is electrical, and the course where your garage door opener is plugged into is without power, or it simply might have become unplugged. It is also possible that your remote opener needs a repair. Maybe the remote is just too far out of range, or the antenna on the motor is having issues.

Other areas to investigate include the tracks. When the garage door comes off its track, it won’t slide properly, or it won’t slide at all. It may not be sliding as it should because there might be an obstacle in the way. Clearing the tracks, or fitting the door back on the track can solve the issue.

Beyond that, it gets more tricky, and potentially dangerous. If a cable has snapped, or if a torsion spring has broken, you will need to call a professional. Messing around with these parts are no joke, and can seriously injure those without the right skills or tools.

No matter what the reason is, finding and fixing the problem is crucial for your garage door to function properly. For more information on how to get your garage door unstuck, or to upgrade to a new garage door, contact Environmental Door today at 616-453-0164.