Simple Troubleshooting Steps for when your Garage Door Won't Open with the Remote

You keep pressing the remote button, yet nothing happens—the door doesn't lift, and you don't hear a peep from the mechanisms pushing and pulling it. So you press again. And again—nothing. Before calling your local garage-door service, try these troubleshooting steps to see where the problem is coming from.

1. Try moving closer to the door, or hold the remote at another angle. You might be simply out of range of the sensors.

2. Verify the power source. Make sure the motor unit is plugged in; it should look like a box above your garage door, placed on the roof of your garage and connected with wiring. Take out the plug and put it back in, just to be sure.

3. After, if your door is still not opening, check your fuse box or circuit breaker.

Fuse boxes or circuit breakers are usually made of metal and are placed flush with the wall; depending on how old your house is, it could be on the outside of your home. If you can't find it, your best bet is to follow the electrical wiring in your house right to its source. You might even have multiple boxes if your house is old. If after opening the box you find a row of switches, you have found a circuit-breaker box. You can easily see which breaker "jumped" because it will not be aligned with the rest on the "on" position. Put the breaker on "on," then "off," then "on" again to reset it fully, and your door-opening mechanism should start working. If it doesn't, it might be time to call your local garage-door service. If you have tiny light bulb–like things in sockets in the box, then you have a fuse box on your hands. A blown fuse looks cloudy. It should be replaced with a new one, and doing this is as easy as screwing in the new fuse in place of the old. If none of the fuses look out of the ordinary, then the problem is somewhere else.

4. If the fuse or breaker is okay, and the motor unit is plugged in, check to see whether the antenna of the unit is hanging down. If it is, that means it's not picking up the signal from the remote, so you should push it back up.

5. If all of the above are okay, and the wall switch for the garage door works, then you should try replacing the batteries in your remote. If the batteries have been replaced, it's possible that the remote reset itself and needs to be reprogrammed. Reprogramming guides can be found on your garage-opening system's manufacturer's website.

If you've done all of the above, and your garage door still won't respond to the remote, then there might be a problem beyond the remote and power circuit. You need a professional touch; call your local garage-door service as soon as you can.