Garage door troubleshooting

Your garage door won't open.

"Won't open" covers everything from a dead remote battery to a snapped spring, and the fix ranges from thirty seconds and free to a real service call. The good news is that the door itself tells you which one you have, and it takes about two minutes to read it.

Below is the order we would check things in if we were standing in your garage, starting with the cheap and harmless. If you heard a loud bang before it stopped working, or the car is trapped and you need it now, read the safety section first.

Written by the crew at Ferguson's Garage Doors, Roanoke, VA Class A licensed, owner-operated Updated August 2026

Before you touch anything

Check these first. Most of them cost nothing.

Everything in the safe column can be done without touching the door's hardware. Everything in the other column has put someone in the ER.

Safe to check yourself

Press the wall button, not the remote. If the wall button works, the problem is the remote or its battery, and you are done.
Look at the opener light. No light and no hum at all usually means no power: check the outlet, the GFCI it may be on, and the breaker.
Check whether the lock button on the wall console is lit. "Vacation lock" disables every remote and gets bumped more often than you would think.
Look up at the shaft above the door. A gap of an inch or two in the spring coil means a broken spring, and the rest of this list no longer applies.
Watch the opener arm when you press the button. If it moves along the rail and the door stays put, the trolley has been released; the red cord was pulled at some point.
Look for anything blocking the tracks or wedged under the bottom seal, and in winter check whether the seal is frozen to the slab.

Leave these alone

Lifting a door that feels like dead weight

A balanced door lifts easily and stays up. One that will not is being held by nothing but you. If it drops, it drops on whatever is under it. That is a broken spring, and it is a call, not a lift.
Turning up the opener force to make it push through

The force dial is a safety limit, not a power setting. Cranking it makes the opener strong enough to strip its own gear, tear the top bracket out of the door, and, on the way down, close on a person.
The spring, cones, and cables

Whether the door is stuck open or closed, the springs are under tension and the cables carry it. Nothing on that shaft should be touched without winding bars and experience.
The red release cord with the door part way up

If the door stopped mid-travel and a spring or cable is the reason, pulling the release drops it. Only release a closed door.

Narrowing it down

Six things it usually is

In rough order of how often we see them, cheapest first. You can rule most of these in or out without a tool.

Remote or wall console

Dead battery, a remote that has lost its programming, or the lock feature enabled on the wall console. Free to fix, and it accounts for a surprising share of "my door is broken" calls. Try the wall button before anything else; if that works, the door is fine.

How you know: The wall button works and the remote does not, or every remote quit at once and the wall console lock light is on.

No power to the opener

The opener plugs into a ceiling outlet that is often on a GFCI circuit shared with the garage or a bathroom. A tripped GFCI, a tripped breaker, or a plug that worked loose during a storm and nobody noticed.

How you know: The opener light does not come on, there is no hum or click at all, and the wall console is dark.

A broken spring

The most common mechanical cause and the one that strands cars. The spring carries the weight; the opener only guides it. With the spring gone the opener strains, lifts an inch, and quits, or does not try at all. Most people heard the bang. This is a same-day repair and the parts ride on our truck.

How you know: A visible gap in the coil above the door, the door feels impossibly heavy by hand, and the opener labors and stops.

The trolley is disconnected

Someone pulled the red emergency release, often during a power cut, and never re-engaged it. The opener runs happily up and down the rail and the door does not follow. On most openers, running the opener until the trolley clicks back onto the carriage reconnects it.

How you know: The motor runs, the arm on the rail travels, and the door does not move at all. The door lifts easily by hand.

Photo-eyes or a limit that has drifted

The safety sensors near the floor mostly affect closing, but a misaligned sensor or a limit switch that has crept can also stop the door opening a few inches up. On the up-stroke, a door that starts and reverses is more often a bind or a tired spring than a sensor.

How you know: The door opens a few inches, stops or reverses, and the opener light flashes a code. Sensor lights are off or blinking.

A stripped gear, dead board, or worn-out motor

Older chain-drive openers strip their plastic drive gear; the motor spins, you hear it, and nothing moves. Boards fail after storms, and capacitors and motors eventually wear out. Usually the opener has been slow, loud, or intermittent for a while.

How you know: The motor hums or whirs with no movement, or clicks and does nothing, and none of the above applies. Often smells hot, or there are plastic shavings on the motor housing.

Why it happens here

The local reasons doors stop opening in the Roanoke Valley

Some of this is just age and use. Some of it is where we live.

Winter cold snaps

Steel springs get brittle when the temperature drops, which is why so many springs let go on the first hard cold morning of the year, usually while the door is closed and nobody is using it. Cold also thickens old grease in the opener and stiffens the rollers, so a marginal door that worked in October will not open in January.
Summer storms and power blips

Afternoon thunderstorms knock out power across the Valley in short bursts. Openers get their logic boards cooked by surges, and people pull the release cord to get out and forget to reconnect it. A cheap surge strip on the ceiling outlet prevents most of the first problem.
Bumped GFCIs in busy garages

Detached and workshop garages around Cave Spring, Vinton, and out in Botetourt often share a GFCI with a freezer or shop tools. It trips, nobody notices, and the door is dead until someone finds the little button.
Openers past their design life

A lot of the housing stock in Hollins, North Roanoke, and Salem went up in the same few years and has the original builder-grade openers in it. Fifteen to twenty years is a full life for a chain-drive unit. They rarely die suddenly; they get slow, then loud, then intermittent, then quit.

What the visit looks like

What we do when we come out for a door that won't open

Ask what it did on the phone

Whether the opener lights up, whether you heard a bang, whether the door lifts by hand. That usually narrows it to one or two causes before we leave the shop and lets us bring the right parts.

Check the door before the opener

The opener gets disconnected and the door is lifted by hand. A door that will not lift and balance is a door problem, usually a spring, and no amount of opener work would fix it.

Fix the cause, then the collateral

Springs, cables, and rollers get replaced as needed. Then the opener is checked for the damage a stuck door tends to do to it: stripped gear, bent arm, tired capacitor.

Reset and test everything

Force, travel limits, and safety reverse are all reset to the door as it now moves. Remotes and keypad get reprogrammed if the board was touched. You watch it run before we leave.

What it costs

Why 'won't open' quotes range so widely

A dead remote battery is a dollar. A new opener is not. Between them sits everything else, and we cannot honestly quote it without knowing which one you have. What we can do is say what moves the number, so a quote from anyone makes sense to you.

Get a quote on your door

Free, no obligation, straight answers

Whether it is the door or the opener

Springs, cables, and rollers are door repairs. Boards, gears, and motors are opener repairs. Sometimes it is both, because a stuck door damages the opener that kept trying to move it.

How long it was run while stuck

This is the part you control. A door that was left alone after the bang is a spring job. A door where the opener was run ten more times is often a spring job plus a gear or a top section.

The age of the opener

On a fifteen-year-old chain drive, a board or motor is often more than half the price of a new belt-drive unit with a battery backup. We will quote both and say which we would do at our own house.

Time of day and how far out you are

A daytime call in the Roanoke Valley is the cleanest. After-hours and longer drives carry a trip component, and we say so on the phone.

What people ask when the door won't open

Have a question that isn't here? Call (540) 293-0197 and you'll get a straight answer.

The opener runs but the door does not move. What is that?

Almost always one of two things. Either the trolley has been disconnected from the door, which happens when someone pulled the red emergency release, or a spring has broken and the opener cannot lift the dead weight. Look up: if the opener arm slides along the rail without the door following, it is disconnected. If the arm is attached and the motor strains, lifts an inch, and quits, look at the spring above the door for a gap in the coil.

I heard a loud bang from the garage and now it will not open.

That was the spring. A torsion spring lets go with a single sharp report, loud enough to be heard through the house, often at night when the temperature drops. Do not run the opener again and do not try to lift the door by hand. It is a same-day repair for us and we usually have the spring on the truck.

Can I open it by hand to get my car out?

If the springs are intact, yes: pull the red release cord with the door closed, then lift. A balanced door lifts with one hand and stays up on its own. If it feels like dead weight or will not stay put, a spring is gone and lifting it is genuinely dangerous. Stop, and call. We would rather come today than have you under a 300-pound door.

The remote works sometimes and not others.

Start with the battery, even if it seems fine, and then check whether the wall button works every time. If the wall button is reliable and the remote is not, it is the remote or its receiver. If neither is reliable, look at the antenna wire hanging from the opener, and consider whether anything new in the house, an LED bulb in the opener socket is a classic, could be interfering. Beyond that it is a logic board question, which we can test in a few minutes.

It opens a few inches and reverses.

The opener thinks it hit something on the way up, which on the up-stroke usually means the door is binding or heavier than the opener's force setting allows. Tired springs, a dry track, a bent hinge, or a roller that has stopped rolling all cause it. Turning the force up is what people try first, and it works right up until it strips the gear or pulls the top bracket out of the section. Find the bind instead.

How fast can someone come out?

For a car stuck inside, usually the same day. Describe exactly what the door does when you press the button, whether you heard a bang, and whether the opener light comes on. That lets us tell you on the phone whether it is safe to wait until morning and what to expect when we arrive.

Not sure which one it is?

Call and describe what the door does when you press the button. You will get a straight answer about whether it can wait, and a firm quote before any work starts.

(540) 293-0197 Request a quote