Garage Door Won't Open or Close? A Safe Checklist

A garage door that will not open or close is usually one of a handful of things, and several of them take less than a minute to check. The order matters. The checks below start with the ones that cannot hurt you and stop well short of the parts that can.

Read this before you touch anything

Safety first. Do not unwind, adjust or remove any torsion or extension spring, lift cable, cable drum or bottom bracket. All of them hold enough stored tension to injure you badly. Never run the opener with a broken spring or a snapped cable. Keep people and pets out from under a door that is crooked or jammed.

Before the checklist, take ten seconds to look up at the springs and along the cables without touching them. If you see a gap of about two inches in a torsion spring, an extension spring hanging loose, a cable off its drum, or the door sitting crooked, stop here. Unplug the opener, leave the door alone and read what to do when a spring breaks.

If the springs and cables look normal, work through these in order.

Which checks are safe, and in what order?

1. Does the opener have power?

Look at the opener light and the wall control. If neither lights up, check that the opener is plugged into the ceiling outlet, reset the outlet if it is a GFCI type, and check the breaker. Then check the house: if the power is out, the opener only works if it has battery backup.

2. Is the wall control or the door locked?

Many wall controls have a lock or vacation button that stops the remotes from working while the wall button still does. Press it once and try a remote again.

Also look at the door itself. If it has a slide bolt or a T-handle lock, make sure it is open. An opener pushing against a locked door can bend the top section.

3. Is it the remote?

If the wall button works and the remote does not, start with the remote battery. Use the battery type printed on the old one. If a fresh battery does not help, the remote may need reprogramming or replacing, which our remote or keypad not working page covers.

4. Are the safety sensor lights steady?

The safety sensors, or photo eyes, sit about six inches off the floor on each side of the door. Most pairs have a light on each side, and the colors vary by brand. When the beam is lined up, both lights glow steady. A blinking or dark light usually means the sensors are out of line, the beam is blocked, a lens is dirty or a wire is cut.

Clear anything in the path, wipe both lenses with a soft cloth and make sure neither bracket has been knocked. A door that opens fine but will not close, or reverses on the way down, is almost always this. See sensor light blinking for more.

On many openers, pressing and holding the wall button will close the door even with a sensor fault. If you do that, watch the door all the way down and keep everyone clear.

5. The release cord and balance test, only if the springs look intact

Only with the door fully closed and the springs and cables intact, pull the emergency release cord and lift the door by hand: a balanced door rises smoothly and stays put about halfway, while one that drops, shoots up or feels very heavy should be lowered gently and left closed. If it moves well, the problem is the opener, and our guide to opening a garage door manually covers each step, including reconnecting the trolley.

Which repair does each symptom point to?

If your door will not move at all, start on the will not open page. If it goes up but will not come down, use the will not close page.

When should you stop and call?

Stop and book a visit when any of these is true:

• A spring is broken, a cable is loose, or the door sits crooked.
• The door feels very heavy in the balance test.
• The opener hums but nothing moves after you have checked the release.
• The sensors are clean and lined up but the lights still blink.
• The opener has no safety sensors at all. Openers made for sale in the United States since 1993 must have entrapment protection, so one without sensors is overdue for replacement.

If the opener is old or keeps failing, the repair or replace your opener guide helps you decide what is worth fixing.

Across San Diego

In hot inland areas like Escondido, low afternoon sun shining straight into a sensor on a west-facing garage can confuse the beam on some openers, so a door that will not close only at certain times of day points to the sensors. In older neighborhoods like Clairemont, the opener on an older home may be old enough to lack sensors entirely, and that is a replacement, not a repair.

Next step

If the safe checks did not solve it, book opener repair and tell us which step it failed at. That, plus a photo of the opener label and the springs, usually tells us what to bring.