Garage Door Won't Open or Close? Run Through This First

A garage door that won’t move is usually one of five common problems wearing the same disguise. Most Athens callers who reach us with a stuck door have one of these, and two of them you can safely check yourself in under five minutes.

First: does the opener do anything at all?

Press the wall button and watch the motor unit on the ceiling.

• Nothing - no light, no sound. It’s power, not the door. Check the outlet the opener is plugged into (garages love tripped GFCIs - look for a reset button on a nearby outlet) and your breaker panel.
• Light comes on, motor hums, door doesn’t move. Something mechanical is disconnected or jammed. Read on.
• Motor runs, trolley moves, door stays put. Someone pulled the red release cord - the door is disconnected from the opener. With the door fully DOWN, pull the cord toward the door to re-engage, then run the opener.

The safe checks

The red cord test. With the door fully closed, pull the release cord and lift the door a few inches by hand. A healthy door comes up easily with one hand. If it feels like dead weight, fifty or a hundred pounds, stop and leave it down. That’s a broken spring, the counterbalance that’s supposed to do the lifting, and a spring visit is the fix.

The sensor check. If the door opens fine but won’t close - starts down then reverses, or just clicks - look at the two small sensors near the floor on either side of the track. Both should show a steady light. A blinking one means they can’t see each other: nudge the brackets until both glow steady, clear any cobwebs or leaves, and shade a lens if low sun hits it (west-facing garages around here get this every clear evening).

The stop-here signs

Call before touching anything if you see:

• A gap in the coil spring above the door, or you heard a loud bang
• Slack, frayed, or popped-off cables at the sides of the door
• The door sitting crooked or off its track

All three mean stored tension has gone somewhere it shouldn’t. The parts that hold a garage door’s spring system are the one piece of home hardware that genuinely injures do-it-yourselfers - let a technician with winding bars take it from there.

Sounds like your situation? The service page has ranges and what a visit involves: Garage door repair in Athens.