How To Open Garage Door Without Power

You can only open garage doors manually from the inside of the garage. This means you must have a secondary entry point, such as a pass door or a man door, to let you get to the mechanism. A man door, as the name suggests, is a standalone door often added to the side of a garage. Meanwhile, a pass door is built into the garage door. Both also provide an additional layer of safety as they can serve as emergency exits if needed.

Find the door trolley. It’s the garage door part connecting to both the door and the garage door opener carriage. It moves as the door opens and closes, so disengaging the trolley will allow you to operate the door manually. You should see a red rope hanging from the trolley; that’s your emergency release cord. When your garage door is down, the rope should be somewhere near the front of the door. Pull the cord all the way down and now your garage door can be operated by hand.

Lift the door up using the handlebar at the bottom. While doing this, pay attention to any unusual noises because that could indicate other problems with your door. If you cannot lift the door at all, don’t try to force it open. Chances are you have a faulty spring. If that’s the case, hire a garage door repair company. Don’t try to disengage the spring yourself. It is loaded with a high amount of force and impact and can cause severe bodily injuries if you don’t have professional knowledge on how to inspect or repair the spring safely.

Once your door is open, pull it all the way back down. Go inside and now pull the emergency release cord toward the door. This compresses the spring and reconnects the trolley and the opener properly. Now, run the opener on a complete cycle (all the way up and then down). You should hear a loud click: that’s your trolley and opener reconnecting.