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Garage doors are one of the best assets for homeowners. It protects your home from dangers, and it’s pretty convenient.
Especially if you have an automatic garage door opener, everything becomes much more comfortable.
With an automatic opener, you can open and close the door quickly.
However, during the power outage, you begin to realize how crucial your garage door opener is.
Luckily, technology hasn’t limited itself within the constraints of emergencies.
Even during a power outage, you can open your garage door.
If you’re curious, here’s how to open the garage door manually.
Safety Precautions
While opening the door manually is generally safe, you still need to consider safety precautions to safely and accomplish the work.
- Close the garage door.
Manually opening the door requires you to pull down the release cord. We recommend doing it when the door is closed. The garage door has the least pressure and tension when it’s closed. Hence, it’s safer. - Turn off the opener motor.
Make sure to unplug the opener motor and other electronic devices during the power outage. This is to prevent electric shock when the power returns while you are working with your garage door. - Leave it to the Pros.
When you’re not confident in pulling off the job, it’s safer to leave it to an emergency garage door service in Vancouver. Since a power outage is an emergency, professionals will cater to you right away.
Opening the Garage Door from the Inside
First Method
In the event you’re inside the garage when the power outage occurred, follow the steps below on how to open garage door manually:
- First, check the parts and components are intact and no damage has been inflicted to the system. Doing this ensures that opening the door manually is successful.
- Liying on top of the garage is the release cord. Pull it down to disengage the lever on the opener carriage.
- Open the garage door all the way.
- Park your vehicle inside.
- Close the overhead door manually.
- Once you’re inside the garage again, make sure to re-engage the cord. Then using a broom handle, push the lever upwards.
Another way is to climb up the step ladder and push the lever by hand.
You can also re-engage the release cord by pulling it upward and bring it towards the opener until you hear a clicking noise.
Furthermore, you can watch this detailed video on how to open a garage door manually from inside the garage.
Second method
There are some cases when pulling the release cord won’t open the garage door.
One probable reason is that there might be damage to the springs or other components of the garage door.
In this way, you can remove the cotter pins and clevis.
By removing them, it detaches the door from its components that are holding the system together.
Hence, you can lift the door manually.
However, if you don’t know how to do it, leave the job to a garage door repair company near you.
Opening the Garage Door from the Outside
On the other hand, if you’re outside your garage, you need to have an emergency release kit installed in your garage door.
This way, you can open the garage door manually from the outside.
If you have the kit, follow these steps on how to open the garage door manually.
- Insert the key into the lock socket in your emergency release kit.
- Rotate the key and remove the lock tumbler from the lock. Doing this will allow you to engage the release mechanism on your garage door opener.
- Then, open the garage door entirely.
- Park your car inside.
- Close the garage door.
- Re-engage the emergency release cord. Using a broom handle, push the lever upwards.
Another way is to climb up the step ladder and push the lever by hand.
You can also re-engage the release cord by pulling it upward and bring it towards the opener until you hear a clicking noise.
When in Doubt, Call Vancouver Overhead Doors for Emergency Garage Door Service!
Opening the garage door manually is easy, and you only need to follow the instructions to pull it off.
Thus, you don’t have to worry about opening the garage door manually during emergencies.
However, if you’re in doubt or your emergency release cord fails to work, call Vancouver Overhead Doors, and we’ll answer your concerns right away.
We will fix whatever your garage door problems are.
After all, we provide 24/ 7 garage door repairs in Vancouver to cater to your requests any time of the day.