Garage door won't open after a storm knocked the power out: the release cord, and what not to force
Because the opener has no power, and the opener is the only thing that ever lifted the door for you. On a Dunwoody summer night with Georgia Power down after a thunderstorm, or the morning after an ice storm, the door is almost certainly fine. The fix is the red cord hanging from the opener rail, and it takes ten seconds. There are two signs it is something else, and they are at the end.
The red release cord
Look up at the rail that runs from the motor to the door. A red cord with a handle hangs from the carriage, the part that slides along the rail. Pull it down and slightly toward the motor. That disconnects the door from the opener; the door is now on its springs alone, the way it was before openers existed.
Lift the door by hand
With the opener released, lift the door from the bottom. A balanced door lifts with one hand and stays where you leave it, halfway up. Raise it fully, back the car out, and lower it by hand. It will not lock; the opener was the lock. If you are leaving for the day, the slide bolt on the inside of the track, or a padlock through the track hole above a roller, holds it closed until the power is back.
Reconnecting when the power returns
Close the door by hand. Pull the red cord toward the door this time, or on most openers just press the wall button: the carriage travels along the rail until it clicks back onto the door’s arm. If the opener runs but the door does not move, the carriage has not caught yet; pull the cord the other way and try again.
An opener with battery backup skips all of this
A belt-drive opener with a battery backup runs a dozen or so cycles with the power out, and the battery recharges when it comes back. It is $90 to $180 added to an opener that supports it, and on the Dunwoody grid, where a summer week can bring three outages, it pays for itself the first night the car is inside.
The two signs it is not the power
The door will not lift by hand, or feels like dead weight. That is a broken spring. Do not force it; a 16-foot door with a broken spring weighs 200 pounds and comes down hard. Leave it closed and call about the spring.
The door lifts a foot and jams crooked. A cable came off its drum or a roller jumped the track, often from an opener that kept pulling after the power flickered. Leave it where it stopped, unplug the opener, and call about the reset.
If the power is back, the door lifts fine by hand, and the opener still does nothing, the storm took the opener’s logic board with the surge. That is a repair, not a replacement, on most units under twelve years old.
When it is time to call: opener repair, or a belt drive with battery backup.