If your garage door operator is no longer connected to your garage door for any reason, you might be wondering what you need to do to get things back to normal.
Maybe you had a power outage or a malfunction and needed to get out, and thus used the manual disengage. If your door is disconnected from the operator and you aren’t sure why, you should probably get a professional to take a look — just to be safe.
But otherwise, you’ll want to follow these steps:
1) Fully Close Your Garage Door
To reconnect your garage door opener, you’ll need to start with your garage door completely closed in the down position — make sure it’s all the way down, and nothing looks out of place or off-center. If you can’t fully close your garage door or something is wrong, stop and contact a professional.
2) Run the Garage Door and See If It Reconnects
Press the button on your garage door opener and see if it figures it out on its own. If you have separate buttons for open and close, press the “close” button, so the operator will move into the “closed” position and match up with the door. If this doesn’t work or nothing happens, you’ll want to move to the next step.
3) Use the Emergency Release
If your garage door still isn’t opening and closing with the opener, pull the emergency release cord toward the door and try opening and closing it manually. You should be able to do so without difficulty — if the door feels too heavy to operate manually, you have a problem with your spring and will need repairs.
The garage door opener doesn’t provide the power to lift the heavy weight of the door — so if the spring isn’t doing its job, the garage door operator can’t either.
4) Run Another Complete Cycle
Once you’ve checked everything, completely disconnected your door from the operator with the release, and reseated it in a fully closed position, run a full close-and-open cycle on your door opener. It should click together the operator and the “trolley” on your garage door in the process, resetting everything back to how you expect it to operate. If not, you’ll want to…
5) Check Owner’s Manual for Additional Steps
If these steps don’t work for your garage door, or don’t seem to fit with what you’re seeing, then you’ll want to check the model of your garage door operator and look up the owner’s manual (assuming you don’t have yours stored somewhere handy). Some brands have additional steps you’ll need to follow to get everything working right.
If you can’t find an owner’s manual or it offers no additional insight, your final step will be…
6) Contact Professionals for Help
If you can’t get your garage door opener reconnected to your garage door, it’s time to contact a professional. Don’t try to DIY garage door repairs; there’s a lot of weight and force involved and minor accidents can have drastic consequences.
If you’re in our service area, Overhead Door Co. of Indianapolis & Muncie will be glad to help you out — contact us today to request assistance.
