We’re lucky where I live. And my “where I live” I mean my specific neighborhood and my specific house. Knock on wood, we don’t have the issues with flooding that so many around me (including in my neighborhood) do. We don’t lose power. We don’t have major natural disasters. So of course we lost power for the first time since we moved into our house.
If you haven’t noticed, it’s been incredibly hot this summer. And on one of our hottest days of the year, we lost power. At first, it was a flicker that went out for just a minute or so before everything turned back on. Five minutes later, the power went out, but there was no buzz of the house turning itself back on. As time ticked by, it got awfully warm in our house. Calling ComEd – our electric company in Chicago – I found out that it would be hours before they expected to repair the blown transformer and restore power.
It was a no brainer. I called our library, confirmed they had power (and air conditioning), and I packed up the wee ones. Getting out of the garage wasn’t a huge issue. I know how to disable the automatic garage door opener. In my case, you simply pull on the red lever, which removes the motor and gear from the track. Then I can manually lift it up and exit the garage – just like I did when I was a little kid and we didn’t have an automatic garage door opener.
Unlike when I was a little kid, we don’t have a key to lock our garage door to keep anyone from coming in the way we did back then. Instead, I locked the back door to our house (thank goodness for the battery operated keypad lock on our front door), and manually closed the garage door. What else can I do, right?
Yes, it was definitely a good call to leave my house. The power outage was fairly widespread. When there’s no power to stoplights anywhere around, you know it’s a bad sign. It took us awhile to get to the library, but we were happy to be there (and meet up with some friends who had the same idea) once we finally arrived.
After a few hours at the library, I got a text from a friend letting me know power had been restored. We all cheered and jumped back in the car to return home. When we arrived, I manually opened the garage door again and drove inside. After scooting the wee ones through the front door, I turned my attention to the garage door, knowing I wanted to reconnect it so that it would work with my opener again.
Easy, right?
It’s only easy if you remember how to do it. I pressed the garage door opener, pleased with myself for remembering how to do this, since I hadn’t had to reconnect my garage door opener in over 10 years. I waited for it to engage the gears as it went past, smiling to myself. Uhhh, nope. The motor worked and pulled the gear along, but the garage door wasn’t engaged and remained firmly planted on the garage floor.
I tried pulling and tugging the cord to see if that worked. Nope.
Next up? Calling friends to see if they (or their husbands if they were around) knew how to reattach the garage door opener. None did.
I could have sat down to cry. Or I could have pretended that all was well with the world and that I wanted to manually open and close the garage door for the rest of the time I lived in this house. Or I could have waited for my husband to get home and make him fix it. But that’s not how I roll. I like figuring things out and fixing them.
So I stood up on the door of my car to peer at the track and gear and garage door. It isn’t a complicated system, relatively. I should be able to visually see how it goes together and fix it that way. I was right. Once I really looked at it, I figured it out, but I’ll save you the pain of having to sit and stare and puzzle.
The first key is that you have to open your garage door. Trying to reengage your garage door opener with the door closed doesn’t work. Problem one solved.
Next up, is reattaching the gear to the track. When you disengage it, it’s easy and obvious. You simply pull back on the emergency cord, and it disengages. Pulling back a second time does nothing. Neither does pulling forward. Instead, you need to pull straight down on that cord, which will reengage the door to the track.
Last up? Now’s the time to press the garage door opener button to have the garage door fully and truly open. Once it does that, all the parts hook together, and you’re good to go.
I’m hoping I don’t have to use this knowledge again soon, but I was proud of myself for figuring it out on my own. I’m all about fixing things myself when I can. After all, I switched out all the electric outlets, light switches, and door handles in my house when we moved in seven years ago. And I replaced my doorbell, too. Of course I can do this.
And it feels pretty good, too!
Thank you Thank you Thank you….
Another single lady/mom here who just needs to rely on her own wits and a little help from google… Power outage last night, trapped in the house with no dinner….
Pulled the emergency release to get out and figured we would deal with it today.
My daughter and I were able to fix it easily with your advice.
Didn’t really want to have a service man come out so thanks for that…
Thank you, Michelle. I tried the advice of 3 others, which did not work. Then I tried your “door open” method…….victory!
I’m so glad that worked for you!
My automatic door opener went out too and since I’ve fixed it before many times I knew how, I was on my way to take car of it when a macho man decided to yank the livin’ daylights out of the red emergency release cord. The whole garage shook with a vengeance and of course the cord snapped off right at the trolley. His response to this was “did you really need it?” I called my garage door installer, from 13 years ago and was told that it couldn’t be re-attached. That sounds like crazy talk to me. Any one have a suggestion? Thank you in advance!
That I unfortunately can’t help you with…I was just happy I figured out a good and easy way to get my garage door to engage after the power went out! Fingers crossed you find a good solution.
A little too much story but the info was terrific! Thanks. It worked like a charm. Truly honest and wonderful.
Even though my pull cord was disengaged, I had to yank straight down while the door would have been in the down position until I heard the click, push the controller to raise the door and hold the actual release lever in the engaged position while the chain was rolling. The morale of these stories, keep fiddling until something happens!
Yes – never give up, especially since each garage door is just a little bit different. I’m so glad you got it to work!
I looked through YouTube videos to figure out why I couldn’t engage my garage door opener after pulling the manual cord because of a power outage. After 1 call to my dad and 2 videos I still didn’t have a solution and the stress was mounting. Then I ran across this webpage and bingo, your instructions worked! The key was pulling the cord again with the garage door open. Leave it to the awesome brain of a detail oriented woman to include this simple step. Thanks so much Michelle for sharing your knowledge!!!
I’m so glad it worked for you! So frustrating when things aren’t working the way we think they should, isn’t it?
Omg….thank you this was truly helpful, loved the story as well, I almost made a simple solution complicated, I like yourself have never lost power but when I did “oh boy” and we all know to pull the red cord that’s where all else goes fuzzy… Lol, I’m pulling and tugging and it was as simple as raise the door and it reattaches.
You’re welcome! I’m so glad it worked for you. I love hearing these stories 🙂
Thank you, thank you, thank you! We had a power failure recently and used the cord to manually open the door. When the power came back on, we could not figure out how to get the dang door to reattach to the opener. (My husband is not very handy [understatement] so usually I have to look after such things.) I went to a couple of links after Googling and they were no help at all. Watched a whole video of a guy in a beard from Sears which didn’t answer my problem. Your perfectly simple solution was the very ticket. No video required! 🙂
Thanks – I’m so glad this helped and that you got it back up and running again!
Wanted to thank you and Cyndie from upthread. After doing all the other things suggested in order to re-attach the track, it was holding down the button “for the full cycle” which did the trick.
Okay, now I can wait for the next emergency! The reason I’d disengaged the door in the first place was not because of a power outage but because my cat had escaped hours earlier. And apparently the trick to getting your cat back safely is to immediately put the litter boxes on the front and back porches so they can smell their scent. And then to leave the garage door open at the bottom. Apparently “indoor only” cats don’t like waiting for you out in the open and the longer they are gone the more further away they are likely to roam. I was in the process of putting some stinky tuna on the front porch when kitty decided that he was greatly loved after all, so he came in through the garage door 10 minutes after I’d opened it.
Got all the suggestions. They saved my baby and you saved me from an expensive service call! Thank you!
I’m so glad this helped you! And that you got your cat back. 🙂