What You Should Do When Your Garage Door Just Won"t Open
Let's say you go into your garage, get into your vehicle intending to go to work, and find the garage door won't open.
If you're lucky, it's only a battery in the remote that's gone bad or you are able to manually override the door in order to open it by hand.
Although your first thoughts may be to call a garage door repairman to come out during the day to fix whatever ails this essential portal, you may be surprised that with a little know-how, you may be able to fix the problem yourself without paying for a maintenance call.
Start by trying to open the door using a keypad instead of your remote.
If that opens the door, then probably all you'll need to do is insert a new battery.
If a new battery isn't the answer, you'll next want to check the tracks the door rides on.
It could be that someone put an obstruction in the track which isn't allowing the door to operate properly.
It's also possible that greasing the tracks will get everything back up and running again.
Dry tracks don't allow for optimum performance and create a lot of the groaning, creaking noises you may hear when your door hesitates in opening.
You may not have time to try and repair the door before you go to work, but when you get home again, go around and tighten all the hardware that is used to open the door.
It's possible that something has worked loose which is causing the door to bind or keeping it from engaging.
Inspect the tracks carefully to see if they are in exact alignment with each other.
If they aren't, the door isn't going to move smoothly.
If you find discrepancies, all you need to do is loosen the appropriate screws and tap the track back into alignment with the other one.
When you exhaust all of these simple repairs to tracks and hardware, you may realize that the problem lies in the motor that opens and closes the door.
Motor problems aren't something that should be tackled by amateurs.
It could be that your opener is worn out and needs to be replaced, or it may need some adjustments that only a professional will know how to do.
You can make sure that everything is plugged in correctly, but unless you know something about electrical equipment, trying to fix a motor problem may just result in more harm than good.
You never realize what an important piece of equipment your garage door is until it doesn't work the way you expect it to.
A little preventive maintenance, such as greasing tracks or tightening screws, before the door refuses to open can go a long way towards keeping your mobility unencumbered.
If you're lucky, it's only a battery in the remote that's gone bad or you are able to manually override the door in order to open it by hand.
Although your first thoughts may be to call a garage door repairman to come out during the day to fix whatever ails this essential portal, you may be surprised that with a little know-how, you may be able to fix the problem yourself without paying for a maintenance call.
Start by trying to open the door using a keypad instead of your remote.
If that opens the door, then probably all you'll need to do is insert a new battery.
If a new battery isn't the answer, you'll next want to check the tracks the door rides on.
It could be that someone put an obstruction in the track which isn't allowing the door to operate properly.
It's also possible that greasing the tracks will get everything back up and running again.
Dry tracks don't allow for optimum performance and create a lot of the groaning, creaking noises you may hear when your door hesitates in opening.
You may not have time to try and repair the door before you go to work, but when you get home again, go around and tighten all the hardware that is used to open the door.
It's possible that something has worked loose which is causing the door to bind or keeping it from engaging.
Inspect the tracks carefully to see if they are in exact alignment with each other.
If they aren't, the door isn't going to move smoothly.
If you find discrepancies, all you need to do is loosen the appropriate screws and tap the track back into alignment with the other one.
When you exhaust all of these simple repairs to tracks and hardware, you may realize that the problem lies in the motor that opens and closes the door.
Motor problems aren't something that should be tackled by amateurs.
It could be that your opener is worn out and needs to be replaced, or it may need some adjustments that only a professional will know how to do.
You can make sure that everything is plugged in correctly, but unless you know something about electrical equipment, trying to fix a motor problem may just result in more harm than good.
You never realize what an important piece of equipment your garage door is until it doesn't work the way you expect it to.
A little preventive maintenance, such as greasing tracks or tightening screws, before the door refuses to open can go a long way towards keeping your mobility unencumbered.
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