Submitted 1 year ago by ANuStart@kbin.social to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
https://kbin.social/m/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world/t/219565
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?
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!
Call a locksmith.
You probably don't want there to be an easy solution.
But there's no second egress?
First watch this… youtu.be/cVXCP8eiT70.
You’ll notice that emergency release cord is actually really close to the door when it’s closed.
If you have a steel door you can push lightly on the center of the door and it will buckle in a little bit. You may dent it, but you should be able to push the dent back out. Once you have created a gap at the top of the door stick a coat hanger or something else in to grab ahold of the emergency pool rope and pull it out.
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.
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.
Some kind of solvent in the keyhole?
Get a new remote and program it to the same code. Or just try replacing the battery.
Any way to dissolve the paint in the keyhole chemically?
If you don’t have a walk-in door or window, no. You’d need someone to pick out otherwise remove the lock.
Remove the lock cylinder and touch the two wires together. Replace cylinder.
The objective is to open a garage door, not hotwire a car from 1973.
So you don’t know how a keyed switch works. Gotcha.
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.
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.
thurstylark@lemm.ee 1 year ago
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
Hyperreality@kbin.social 1 year ago
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.
DannyMac@lemmy.world 1 year ago
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.
jiberish@lemmy.world 1 year ago
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.