Why won’t Tina’s Woodstock garage door open?

It’s been a long day and Tina is happy to return to her Woodstock home. Her thoughts turn to soaking in a bath before a bite to eat followed by reclining on the sofa with a good book she’s reading these days. As she pulls in the driveway, the hits the button on the remote. If she’s timed it right, she’ll pull down the driveway and into the garage without having to hit the brakes; the garage door will open just as the car passes underneath. But, something is wrong.

Tina hits the brakes hard as she realizes the garage door hasn’t opened. It hasn’t even started to open. Now, stopped in front of the closed garage door, she hits the button again. Still nothing.

There are several reasons the garage door isn’t opening. Tina doesn’t care. What she cares about is that her relaxation is on hold. She’ll probably leave the car in her Woodstock driveway go inside and call the garage door repair service. In the meantime, she’ll try to get back to her plan for relaxing. It’s not the end of the world but it has caused a little frustration just when she expected to begin unwinding.

What could be wrong with her garage door? There are several possibilities, including:

• One of the springs that take up the weight of the garage door could have broken. The torsion springs make it possible for the garage door opener to lift and lower the garage door. Without the springs, the garage door opener is a 100-pound weakling waiting on the beach for someone to kick sand in his face.
• Your garage door could have tracks that are out of alignment. Usually, if this is the problem, it won’t cause the garage door to not move at all, but that is a possibility.
• The belt to the garage door opener motor could have broken or slipped off the pulley. In this case, the garage door opener may be running but it is disconnected from the drive that moves the garage door.
• The garage door transmitter may be faulty. If the transmitter worked with your garage door before, it should work now. But, things do break and it’s possible this could happen to your transmitter. You may need to reset the codes or replace the transmitter.
• Something could be blocking the garage door so it won’t open. It’s also possible that the garage door is locked. But, why would you lock your garage door if you want to use the garage door opener to open it?
• There’s another possibility but it’s so simple that you might not think about it; you may need new batteries in your transmitter.

Whatever the problem with Tina’s garage door opener, there’s no reason to stress out. She can check out the batteries, make sure the door isn’t locked or blocked. If none of those are causing the problem, she can call a garage door repair service to send someone to her Woodstock home. But, first, she should soak in a bath, have something to eat and relax with her book. The garage door will wait. Well, maybe she wants to call the garage door repair service first, but, either way, she shouldn’t stress.