(402) 401-4600

Garage Doors And Power Outages

Power outages can sometimes be a little fun and exciting, when you have nowhere to go and know that there’s no possibility of danger, but if it isn’t just an excuse to bring out the candles then power outages can be a real hassle. If you are like most people you have gotten used to the wonders and convenience that an automatic garage door opener provides you, but sadly they also run on electricity. Your automatic garage door opener is great for the exact times when power outages related to weather are at all likely really. This of course is a bit annoying, but unless you have a pretty terrible power provider or live in a place where power outages are very likely it’s not something that happens often. However, in those odd instances when your power does go out and you need to use your garage door opener you will be caught out of luck. 

Thankfully there is a way to get your car in or out during a bad storm or even if you just ran out of battery in your garage door opener remote. Sadly however the only real way to open up your garage door is to be in the garage and to disengage the garage door from the garage door opener. This means that if you are outside you will have a hard time lifting up the door while it is down because it will be locked into place by the automatic garage door opener. If it’s early in the morning and you have already woken up late because of the power outage you likely won’t be too happy about the whole ordeal, but you will need to use your garage door to get to work. Garage door openers typical work the same way when it comes to how to disengage them, all you need to do is grab the rope or handle that is hanging off of the opener down and you will disengage the opener allowing you to manually open or close your garage door. Keep in mind that if your garage door is open while you do this there is a possibility that your garage door can slap down once it is disengaged. This can be quite dangerous and could even damage your garage door, so if possible it is best to disengage your garage door opener when the garage door has already been closed.

After a particularly bad storm or if there is work going on at your home it is possible that you will be sure that you won’t be having power to your garage door opener for a while. If this is the case then you may want to think about disengaging your garage door long term, until you get power to your garage door again. Doing this is relatively easy and again should be done when the garage door has already been closed in order to avoid injury. To keep your garage door disengaged from the garage door opener simply pull down on that rope or handle that is hanging from the opener and then pull back towards your garage door opener. This should lock your garage door in place so that you can freely open and close your garage door without being worried about your opener taking over.

When you have had your garage door disengaged for a while you might find yourself just pining for the convenience of the days when you didn’t need to leave your car to open or close your garage door. If you have especially bad weather you may be even more inclined to try and get your automatic garage door opening as quick as you can. If you have been using your garage door manually then you will need to have the garage door opener engaged again in order for it to work. There are a few ways to do this, but they are all relatively simple. The first step will be to have your garage door closed, just to make sure there’s no risk of anything getting disengaged and falling down quickly. The second step to engage your garage door opener again is to pull that handle down and forward, or away for your  garage door opener. If things are lined up correctly your garage door may already be engaged again. If not you can lift the garage door up manually which should have things back in place soon or you can force the opener to do the work and get things into place that way. After that you should test out the opener with an opening and a closing or two, but it should be back to its usual operations.

Power outages aren’t the worst thing in the world for most people and they really don’t do much more than inconvenience most of us, but sadly your garage door opener is pretty much done without electricity. You can check your manual for the exact instructions on how to best use your opener without electricity, but at this point most of the openers are pretty standard and similar. One thing you may want to look into however is the security measures on your garage door during power outages. Most garage doors these days pretty much go into lock down if they are closed and don’t have power. This is great for you because they will not be able to be broken into if for some reason somebody purposefully cuts off your power, but it can also be troublesome if you can’t figure out how to override it with more than pulling on the handle. Garage doors are designed to be usable by you under these circumstances while being unusable by the wrong people hopefully. In this case it is important to remember that if you keep your garage door opener disengaged these security measures won’t be in use and so your garage door will be able to be opened by nearly everyone. If you are doing this long term then it is suggested that you make sure to keep your other doors locked up at all times to avoid and security risks.