Automatic garage doors provide many home and car owners with the convenience of not having to manually open and close their garage doors, especially when it’s raining or when you are just too tired to do any more lifting or pushing. Although these may sound like getting an automatic garage door a good idea, do note that there is one major drawback that deters people from using such a mechanism – power outages. Yes, what do you do with your automatic garage doors when there is no electric power to open them?
Using the Emergency Release Cord
Automatic garage doors have an emergency release cord installed in them for situations like power outages, or when a certain mechanical failure causes the door to get stuck, when your door remote runs out of battery. This is a standard addition to any automatic garage doors, and no manufacturer will sell you one without it.
Locating the Emergency Release Cord
The emergency release cord (in most cases) can be found along the garage door opener rail, or somewhere near the door arm that connects to the opener. More often than not, the cord is colored red to make it a lot more visible and easy to find. After finding the emergency release cord, pull it down to release the door trolley.
Lifting and Opening the Garage Door
After the door trolley is released, you should be able to manually open the door now. You can do this by grasping the door handle at the bottom of the garage door, or if there is none grab the lower part of the garage door and push it upwards until it opens.
After doing the above steps, the garage door is now detached from the trolley or the carriage. You need to connect both again so you can use it once the power comes back. To do this, wait for the electricity to return first, and when it does, open the garage door manually again. Then, push the opener button to bring the trolley or carriage to open position. Once it stops moving, slowly pull down the garage doors to connect it to the trolley, and now you can start using your garage doors automatically again. If it doesn’t work, repeat the process until it does.