What to Do When Your Garage Door Won’t Open or Close with the Remote

So you’ve arrived home and your garage door won’t open. You begin to worry, but once you get inside, the wall switch operates the door fine. Or you wake up in the morning and have no problem opening the door with the mechanism on the wall, but once you roll down your driveway and try to close it with the remote, it won’t work. Whatever your particular situation, it points to a problem with your garage door opener remote. Luckily, this is generally one of the least expensive and easy problems to solve regarding garage doors. By checking the following items, you can narrow your problem down and figure out a solution.

Before focusing on your remote itself, check a few things:

• Does the door still open with the wall switch? This is a major factor. If your garage door opens like normal when you hit the wall switch, but doesn’t budge when you use the remote, it’s a sign that the problem is contained to the remote itself.
• Is this an ongoing problem or a sudden one? Has this been going on for a while or did it just start? Does it happen occasionally or all the time?
• Can you get your door to open and close by repeatedly using the remote? If you use extreme patience and keep hitting your remote over and over again, pointed at different angles at the door, can you eventually get it to work? This can help point you to a cause.
• Is your garage door performing normally? Or are you noticing it sticking, moving extra slowly, moving up and down crookedly, or making more noise than usual? All of these signs can clue you in that something is wrong with your garage door or the mechanism that controls it, instead of just being limited to a problem with the remote.

Look for damage to your remote.

Damage as simple as a crack in the plastic housing might not affect the performance of your remote, but sometimes they can be a sign of internal damage. It may be a good idea to take the cover off of your remote with a screw driver if you notice any damage to the outside to assess whether or not the damage has affected the inside parts as well. If so, you may need to replace the remote altogether.

Replace old or expired batteries.

This is a very common cause of the remote not opening the garage door. If you’ve had your remote for a while, or you notice that the batteries are in poor shape when you open your remote, then it’s a simple, cheap fix to replace them. Be sure to purchase and install high-quality batteries so you don’t have to do it again for a while. Every few years you should install new batteries in your remote to keep it functioning properly.

Perform a reset on your remote.

If your garage door remote is relatively new, and you think that the batteries are in good shape, it might be a good idea to reset your remote. You do this for the same reason you reset your router or other electronic devices; sometimes the signals can get mixed up or the receivers overloaded, and resetting your remote can clear this backup out. This simple maneuver can be performed by removing the screws from the back of your remote, if it has them, and then taking off the plastic access panel.

Remove the existing batteries and then leave them out for a full minute. This gives your remote enough time to reset. It also gives you a chance to check for any problems with the batteries, including corrosion around the battery terminals or leaking. Replace the batteries, make sure they’re snug, and then replace the cover. Test and see if this worked. If so, great! If not, continue checking for other problems.

Check for scratches to both the remote and the wall’s transmitters.

Your garage door has sensors on both the wall and the door itself that send signals to one another, which is what causes the door to operate. There is also a sensor on your remote usually covered by clear plastic that sends a signal to an antenna attached to the wall transmitter. If you keep your remote in your glove box or purse, or another area where it rubs or bumps against other items, the plastic over the signal transmitter can get scratched or dirty. Inspect this area and clean off any grime you find. If you see scratches on the plastic, you may have to replace the remote entirely.

Inspect to see if something is interfering with the wall receiver.

When you push the button on your remote, it sends a wireless signal that is transmitted to a receiver on the wall that controls the garage door mechanism. If something gets in the way of that signal and interferes with it reaching the panel, then the remote won’t work. Causes of this problem include a build-up of dust or dirt, spider webs around the garage door mechanism, or branches or other debris that has gotten up around the wall receiver. It’s also important to make sure that the antenna on your receiver is hanging down and free from obstruction, as this is what actually catches the signal from your garage door opener.