Opening Your Garage Door Without Electricity

Regardless of the region you live in within the United States, you’ve no doubt experienced a power outage at some point during your life. Heavy winds and lightning generally don’t pose a problem until the severity of them leads to a loss of electricity, in which case they become a major burden. Small privileges that were once an afterthought soon turn to precious commodities, we all of a sudden can’t live without. These things include:

• Air conditioning
• Television
• The refrigerator
• Opening the garage door

We’d bet a fair amount of money that nobody expected the last item on the list. Normally the ability to open a garage door isn’t thought of as a precious commodity until the option to complete this task becomes a possible life or death situation. Think in terms of a movie like Friday the 13^th and escaping from a masked Jason Vorhees. Okay, maybe we went a little overboard. But what if your car is parked in the garage and you need in for an emergency room trip? Maybe someone cut themselves preparing dinner or there’s been an allergic reaction leading to shock. In these cases, being able to open the garage door trumps everything else on the list, wouldn’t you say?

If you’ve never had to manually open a garage door by switching from electric to self-service mode, don’t worry, this short guide can help you.

Lose Power, Lose Everything

Maybe you don’t lose everything. However, the reason you can’t open the door is because the electrical connection has been severed between the garage door opener and trolley system. We’re going to show you how to override this system and do things the old-fashioned way.

Very Important!

Clear the area inside the garage of every man, woman, and child living in your home. Except for yourself, of course.

Take Caution

The springs in your garage door are under an intense amount of pressure and could potentially be deadly. We’re not kidding, either. If the springs break loose, they will propel at any item in their path with hundreds of pounds of force behind them. Either that, or the door they were holding will come down on anything beneath it. (i.e., you)

Disconnect the Garage Door Opener

You’re probably wondering why we’re asking you to disconnect something that doesn’t have any power cycling through it. This is a very good question, however, as silly as it seems, it’s very necessary. If the power were to suddenly turn on during your handy work, you could be injured by the suddenly working parts, become electrocuted, or a combination of both. Please disconnect the power before starting any work.

You Need Light

Use an LED headlamp if you have one available so you can work with both of your hands.

While we’re on the subject, there should at least be a small flashlight available in the garage at all times for this specific occasion. Once again, a headlamp would be your best option.

Whenever we lose power, the first move is usually a mad scramble to find any source of light that we can utilize. This scramble can include several knee-scraping, toe-breaking encounters with various obstacles throughout your home. Having headlamps or flashlights strategically placed throughout your home and garage can prevent a lot of headaches. Yes, we mean literal headaches.

Consumer Reports has great tips for being smart when it comes to preparing your house for a power outage.

Manually Opening from the Inside

Step 1. The Garage Door Should be FULLY CLOSED

Before you say anything, we understand that the garage door is closed, otherwise we wouldn’t be writing a guide about opening it, right? It’s possible that the door was in the process of closing when your power went out, and it’s only partially closed. If this is the case, you’ll probably need to contact garage door specialists at once.

Attempting to disconnect the garage door opener and open the door from a partially open position is incredibly dangerous.

If a spring is broken or not well balanced, your garage door may not open even if you have power. Let’s say you attempt to open it but for whatever reason, the door gets jammed. You never want to force the door open or closed in any situation.

You don’t want to release the garage door while it’s partially open because it could fall down from its current point and crush you.

Please, don’t attempt to proceed any further if the door is open even slightly.

Here is another tip that seems irrelevant but is actually quite important:

Weigh other options before going into action attempting to manually open the garage door. Think of another way out. Can you use a different car that’s outside of the garage? Can you call a friend? Can you call a cab? Use every possible resource before manually opening the door. We’re going to tell you why.

Most likely the power will return before you finish the entire process. Regardless of how far you’ve gotten, you’ll have to stop what you’re doing and work backwards to return the door to its original state. Not only was all your work for not, but you also now have to do double the work to get back to square one, and the garage door would’ve been operating just fine at this point. It’s not an easy job to complete by any means.

Before you begin, try to find any other solution to your problem.

Step 2. Locate the Bypass Handle or Rope

The opener rails should have a rope that hangs down from them. In some cases, the rope is red with a red handle. Regardless of the color, this is the bypass rope and handle.

When the door is FULLY SHUT, and it should be for your sake, the rope is located in the center of the garage door. No, not the literal center of the garage door, but if you stand in the center point of your door and look up, you should see the rope.

This handle is often red because, you know, emergency, and it is your garage door opener emergency release handle.

Step 3. Grab the Handle and Pull the Rope

After pulling the cord, wait for your parachute to deploy. Oh, wait, wrong rope.

The trolley is actually attached to the opener motor AND the door itself. When the door opens and closes electronically, the trolley moves back and forth to open the garage door. The trolley operator is what moves your garage door. When you pull the cord, this component is disabled.

When the trolley is disconnected, take the time to slide it back an inch or so, away from the door.

Step 4. Grab the Handle and Lift

Look for a handle located on the bottom panel of your garage door. There will either be one right in the middle, or two on the far left and far right sides.

A well-balanced garage door will be easy to lift. Whether you have a double garage door or a standard single garage door, they should both open just as easily.

If you can’t open the door and feel like it’s going to take some elbow grease, COMPLETELY STOP THE PROCESS AND BACK AWAY SLOWLY.

Do not allow the door to drop quickly when you let it go. Slowly guide the door back to the closed position and slowly walk away. The door needs to be repaired, replaced, or it needs to undergo maintenance.

Call your local garage door specialists as soon as you can!

The spring of your garage door will last about 5 to 7 years. If you experienced the previously mentioned issue, most likely the spring needs to be replaced.

Contrary to popular belief, the garage door opener does not, in fact, lift your garage door. The spring completes this task, with a lot of pressure behind it.

The Law of Physics

When an object weighs 500 pounds, it’s only practical that it’s going to take 500 pounds of force to lift said object. In the case of your garage door, the spring is the object that needs 500 pounds of force behind it to lift a 500-pound door. Have you ever been hit with 500 pounds of force?

The Function

When the spring isn’t properly balanced, there are only two things that remain to take the weight of the door. Option number one is you, and option number two is the garage door opener. The garage door opener is not designed to hold these types of weights for any substantial period, so guess what. Option number one is the lucky winner of 500 pounds of pressure directly to the top of the head.

Step 5. Reverse Engineer the Process

Let’s assume you made it through the process. The power will return at some point, and you need to fix everything.

Let’s walk you through the reconnection process. Follow these simple steps:

1. The garage door must be fully closed (do you notice a pattern here)
2. Pull on the emergency rope with a broom handle.
3. 3. Lift the door until you hear a click or connection.

Reconnecting the trolley to the opener is as simple as running the opener for one total cycle. One cycle means the door goes all the way up, and all the way down. At some point, the trolley and the carriage will meet each other. This is when you will hear the click. The click is your signal that the door has returned to business as usually.

Opening the Door Manually from Outside

If you don’t have an access door on the side of your garage, you should invest in an outside quick release.

Having one entrance point in and out of the garage is not the safest option, especially if you experience a fire. This is how to engage a quick release:

1. Locate the outside quick release and put the key into the lock.
2. Turn the key and the lock tumbler should be able to be removed. This disconnects the trolley operator.
3. Open the garage door by lifting with your arms until it can’t move any longer.
4. Drive your car inside the garage, then slowly begin to lower the door manually.
5. Use a broom handle to push on the lever to reengage the proper equipment on the garage door. Once again, you should hear a loud click if you’ve done this properly.
6. Make sure you have another way to enter your home before you completely exit and lock the garage.

You Can Avoid Everything We Just Mentioned by Purchasing One Simple Item...

If you think you would enjoy all the steps we just described, ignore the next section. We understand how you might find all that manual labor exciting, but we figured we would mention this lifesaving, convenient product just for fun.

Purchase a garage door opener that has a battery backup included. You’ll never have to worry about not opening your garage door the easy way ever again.

There are many models of garage door openers, and choosing the right one depends on how much space you want to save and the type of garage door you have or want.

LiftMaster garage door openers now come standard with cool features like the ability to control your garage door from your smartphone.

LiftMaster decided to incorporate myQ technology into all of their products a few years ago. This made life a lot easier for everybody lucky enough to own one. myQ gives you the ability to control and monitor every aspect of your garage directly from your phone. There are cameras, audio tools, and the ability to open and close the door from anywhere in the world.

What you can see on your smart phone when you have an integrated camera on your garage door opener.

The LiftMaster 87504-267 is the model that has integrated 2-way audio. You can communicate with anyone inside of your garage. This is a cool feature if you have kids that get home from school when you aren’t around, or if you need to show someone where a hidden key is.

Maybe you don’t need a camera. If that’s the case, then the LiftMaster 87802 automatic opener may be your best bet.

Here is an example of the alert you would receive on your smart phone.

This still comes with the myQ app that allow you to receive alerts about when your garage door is opened or closed. It also comes with the cool lifesaving backup battery that nobody wants because they would rather spend hours manually opening their garage door. Seriously, you need one of these garage door openers. Even if you can’t use the special features, the backup battery is worth the purchase alone.

If you have a low ceiling in the garage, you have other options for an opener.

The LiftMaster 8500W is a wall-mounted electric garage door opener that will save you tons of space. You can utilize that ceiling for all types of space, especially if you have beams that allow you to place landscaping products or kayaks up there.

This model includes all the MQ bells and whistles, including the ability to operate your door from anywhere.

Need a Hand Making the Right Choice?

Contact Doan’s Overhead Doors ’garage door experts at 705-324-1005.

If you are already the lucky owner of a LiftMaster garage door opener and just want the cool backup battery, we can help you with that. Regardless of what your needs are, we’re here for you to answer any questions and address your concerns.

Maybe you want a quieter model, or just want something that will fit into your budget. We have the ability to send you a quotation by email so you’re prepared when you arrive in the store. If you just need a checkup service to test the safety of your opener, we provide those as well.

Maybe it’s time for a total garage overhaul.

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