During a storm, you may find that your power has gone out. While power outages are commonly associated with no lights, not being able to charge phones, or not cooking meals, there are even more ways a power outage can affect your home.
For instance, a power outage can make it where you can’t use your electric garage door opener. This is no reason to panic and call for a garage door repair. Instead, follow these tips to use your garage door safely.
Wait if Possible
If you do not have an immediate need to use your garage doors, you may not need to worry about doing so without electricity. That’s because oftentimes, power outages are short. When the electricity comes back on, you will be able to resume using your doors as you are used to. However, if the electricity is out and you find yourself needing to open the doors immediately, you can continue to follow these tips.
1) Make sure the Door is Fully Closed
Before taking further steps in opening your garage door, you must first make sure that it is all the way down. This is to protect the safety of yourself as well as anybody who is near the door. That’s because the garage door is heavy, and if the door does not start fully closed, the upcoming steps can cause your door to fall all the way closed. With how heavy your garage doors are, this is a safety hazard.
If you cannot get your door to close correctly, call a professional for help.
2) Pull the Emergency Release Cord
After ensuring that your garage door is fully closed, it is time to pull the emergency release cord. This cord can be located near the front of the door, and it is often red. By pulling the release cord, you disconnect your door from the system used to open it electronically. As a result, you will be able to lift open your garage door.
3) Lift the Door Up
Now that you have pulled the emergency release cord on your garage door opening system, your door will function as a manual garage door. This means that you will be able to open it without electricity. Start pulling from the bottom to open the door and use your hands to guide it upwards. Please be sure to keep your fingers and hands away from the garage door section joints. Use the handles or any gripping points away from the section joints to raise and lower the garage door. Before fully releasing the garage door, you should check to ensure that your garage door stays still and open. By doing this you are making sure that it is safe to travel underneath the door without the fear of it coming closed.
4) Close the door
Once you have passed through your garage door safely, you can close your garage door the same way you opened it. Please be sure to keep your fingers and hands away from the garage door section joints. You will use your hands to guide the door downwards slowly and carefully until it is entirely closed again. From there, you can lock your doors if you have a manual lock attached.
Contact Us for Garage Door Repair
At Hollywood-Crawford Door Co. we provide our clients with garage doors that can last decades and we also have garage door openers with a battery backup that can operate the garage door even when the power is out. Whether you need a repair or a replacement, we have you covered!
