I locked myself out of my detached garage. The remote to open it no longer works.
It’s a really old garage and the opener is from 1999.
Trying to lift it obviously doesnt work. There’s an emergency release you can activate with a key, but the keyhole is crammed full of old hard metallic paint that I can’t get out.
Anything else I can do? Or do I have do smash the thing down?
Also worth mentioning: if you fuck up the door trying to get into it,
DO NOT ATTEMPT TO FIX A GARAGE DOOR YOURSELF!
Light percussive maintenance to bend a panel back into shape is one thing, but never ever try to take one apart if you aren’t qualified. There are dangerous springs under tension that can and will kill you.
Get a professional
The side springs at least are harmless if the door is up and they are not under any tension. But you just have to be double sure the door is secure in the up position.
Depends on the garage door. Plenty of electric garage doors use a motor rather than a spring. Relatively safe to repair yourself if you know what you’re doing. The motor’s usually the first thing that breaks and they’re relatively cheap to replace.
Manual garage door with a spring? Very dangerous, as you rightly pointed out.
Hold up, that may not be always the case. My garage door has a spring wound under tension to help the motor lift the door and it is a one-car wide garage door. If that has a catastrophic, uncontrolled release and no one gets hurt, consider yourself lucky.
Oh, absolutely. Not saying it’s not possible. So check to be sure.
Mine doesn’t. Used to work maintenance, plenty of electric doors, rolldown stormshutters and theft prevention shutters I encountered didn’t have a spring.
On a manual door it’s almost certain to use a spring.
Electric not always the case. Motors are apparently powerful enough.
This isn’t usually true, as a power-outage could trap a vehicle inside without a manual release. This is usually a little rope hanging from the connecting latch on the motor chain or screw-traveler.
If there wasn’t a spring to help lift the door open then the manual release would at best do very little to help you open the door, or at worst send it crashing down uncontrollably if you released it while the door was open.
Trust me, it’s got a spring.
Yeah, there’s a spring. Those motors don’t have the power to lift it without the spring, at least the one at my dad’s place didn’t have enough power when that spring went.
Quick google. Here’s an example of a small and relatively affordable motor you can buy:
https://hurricaneshutters.com/100nm-roll-shutter-motor
Max carrying capacity is 400lbs/200kg.
Some of the more powerful ones, you can basically hang on to the door as it’s opening.
Heavy duty industrial ones? Metro stations where I live automatically open. On more than one occassion a homeless person makes the mistake of tampering with the metal roll down shutters come opening time. They get caught, motor keeps going, drags them into the mechanism and partially crushes them.
I’ve come across plenty without a manual release. No rope.
And yes, without a manual release you can’t easily open it manually while the power’s off. You need to overcome gravity and the motor. Forklift or a jack is the easiest way.
Direct drive stops it falling down uncontrollably.
They all use springs. Modern garage doors use torsion springs which are safer. They look like a small rod mounted on the wall directly above the garage door.
Nope. Did maintenance for a while.
Some the roll garage door is connected directly to the motor which pulls/pushes it up a rail with teeth. Direct drive. No spring, even above the door.
Roll down storm shutters and theft prevention shutters often don’t have them either.
Obviously, this is anecdotal for my area, and it’s best to always check.
It’s possible that the sealed motor unit has a small spring in it, but I’d often replace the entire thing.
As far as I’m concerned, not knowing the difference falls under the “not qualified” part of my earlier statement.
You happen to know what you’ve got, and what you’re doing? Go for it. More power to you.
Any shadow of doubt? Put the tools down, get someone who knows what they’re doing.
Yes. You can reach in between the top of the door and the wall with a bent wire, and use it to grab the pull cord that releases the door.
It is difficult to describe, but there are plenty of videos out there showing this method. It is surprisingly easy on some doors once you get the technique right.
For those stumbling upon this comment, there are easy ways to protect your garage door from being opened this way - you can fit a guard near the pull cord to prevent it from being hooked.
I cut the handle off the rope so people can’t do this. Hopefully OP isn’t as paranoid as I am!
You probably don’t want there to be an easy solution.
But there’s no second egress?
Sounds like you have the key for that little lock. If so clean it out and use it.
If you cannot do that then drill out that little lock.
I would probably just ask my local hardware store what garage door guy they recommend.
Call a locksmith.
Personally, I’d sorta prefer he hulk smashes it
Or open it vehicularly
Some kind of solvent in the keyhole?
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I was going to suggest this method. This is also why you remove the big plastic knob on the end of that pull cord (so the cost have trick no longer works). Thieves break into houses that way because it’s quiet and most people don’t see their closed garage door as vulnerable.
Get a new remote and program it to the same code. Or just try replacing the battery.
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You could get a new garage door remote. The code should be as little switches on the inside of the old remote.
isnt that only for remotes without rolling codes?
Yes but OP says:
opener is from 1999.
Trying to lift it obviously doesnt work
Have you just tried harder?
Get a new opener, they are like $15.
But you can’t get into your garage if there is a power outage? I would work on that problem.
Any way to dissolve the paint in the keyhole chemically?
I’d start with spraying some WD40 in there, or maybe some paint thinner first. You could use your key as an applicator for paint thinner. But I’d bet that the paint only covers the hole and maybe seeped in a little bit, so you probably just need to break up that initial bubble to get the key in there, then something that will spread to all corners should help loosen it up if it’s still bound when you stick the key in.
I’d definitely stick with that door as the angle to get in. You could take a hammer to the door knob as a last resort (assuming it’s not a deadbolt lock, though even those will fail against tools and violence unless you’re using hardened steel) and replacing those will be cheaper than anything on a garage door, assuming you don’t get the pull cord release suggested in another comment to work.
A locksmith might help, depending on how bound the paint is. Or if you need to destroy the lock and replace it, they could likely help with that, too.
If you don’t have a walk-in door or window, no. You’d need someone to pick out otherwise remove the lock.
Get the pull cord somehow. If there is an emergency release, put a coat hanger between the door slats or drill a small hole into the door to pull it with a coat hanger.
