The door sits shut. You press the remote ā nothing. Or the opener hums and the door doesn’t budge. Before you call for service, run through these checks in order. Most no-open calls in Richmond and across Metro Vancouver come down to one of five causes, and three of them you can verify in two minutes with no tools.
Start With the Obvious: Power and Lock
Is the opener plugged in? Sounds basic, but vibration works cords loose from ceiling outlets. Check the plug. If it’s a GFCI outlet, press the reset button ā Richmond’s wet winters trip them regularly.
Is the wall control locked? Most LiftMaster and Chamberlain units have a lock button (usually a padlock icon) that disables remotes while keeping the wall button active. Hold it for three seconds to toggle.
Did the breaker trip? Garage circuits often share a breaker with exterior outlets or lights. Check the panel. A tripped breaker won’t always sit fully in the middle ā push it to OFF then back to ON.
If the opener lights don’t come on at all, you have a power supply problem, not a door problem. Stop here and call an electrician if the outlet is dead and the breaker holds.
Photo-Eye Sensors: The Most Common Silent Failure
Two small boxes near the floor, one on each side of the track, shoot an invisible beam across the opening. Break that beam and the door refuses to close ā but on many models, a misaligned or dirty sensor also prevents opening.
Check alignment. Each sensor has an LED. Both should glow steady (usually green or amber). If one is off or blinking, loosen the wing nut and pivot the bracket until the light locks on solid.
Clean the lenses. Spider webs, cobwebs, and a film of road salt from winter driving coat the lenses. Wipe with a dry microfiber cloth. Don’t use spray cleaner ā residue attracts more grit.
Check the wiring. The low-voltage wires running to each sensor get nicked by shovels, bikes, and storage boxes. Look for crushed insulation or pulled connections at the sensor and at the opener terminal.
If the sensors check out but the opener still won’t run, hold the wall button down continuously. This overrides the sensor circuit on most residential openers. If the door moves with the wall button held but not with a press-and-release, the sensors are still the issue ā alignment or wiring.
The Manual Release: Test the Door Itself
Pull the red emergency cord hanging from the opener rail. This disconnects the trolley so the door moves freely by hand.
Lift the door waist-high and let go. A properly balanced door stays put. If it crashes down or flies up, the springs are out of balance ā or broken. Do not operate the opener with an unbalanced door. The motor isn’t designed to lift dead weight, and you’ll strip the drive gear or snap the chain.
Feel for binding. Slide the door up and down manually. It should move smoothly. A catch every few inches suggests a bent track, a roller popped out of its stem, or a cable off the drum. Look at the cables on both sides ā they should sit clean in the drum grooves with no slack.
If the door is heavy, binds, or a cable is loose, stop. Reconnect the opener (pull the cord toward the motor until it clicks) and call a technician. This is no longer a DIW situation.
Opener Symptoms: What the Motor Tells You
Motor hums, nothing moves. The capacitor is likely failed, or the drive gear is stripped. On chain-drive units, the sprocket may have sheared. You’ll hear a low growl ā that’s the motor stalled under load.
Motor runs, chain/belt moves, door doesn’t. The trolley is disconnected (check the release cord) or the trolley carriage is broken. On belt drives, the belt can jump a tooth if the tension spring failed.
Click-click-click from the opener. The logic board is trying to drive the motor but hitting an internal fault. Could be a bad RPM sensor, a shorted motor winding, or a fried relay. Board-level diagnosis needs a meter and parts.
Remote works, wall button doesn’t (or vice versa). See the dedicated guide on remote-vs-wall-button faults ā it’s usually a wiring short or a bad control board channel.
Torsion Springs: The Hard Stop
If the door is heavy by hand, won’t stay up, and you see a gap in the spring coil above the door, the torsion spring is broken. A standard residential spring is rated for 10,000 cycles ā roughly 7 to 10 years in a typical two-car household. Richmond’s damp climate doesn’t shorten spring life directly, but it accelerates corrosion on non-galvanized wire, and corrosion creates stress risers that cut cycle life by 20 to 30 percent.
Do not attempt to wind or replace a torsion spring. The stored energy in a wound spring is enough to drive a winding bar through a cinder block. Every year, homeowners lose fingers, break wrists, and put holes in garage walls trying to save a service call. The risk is not theoretical.
Extension springs (the ones running parallel to the horizontal tracks) are less violent but still dangerous ā they whip when they snap. If a safety cable isn’t threaded through each spring, a break sends metal across the garage.
Cables and Drums: The Silent Saboteurs
A cable that’s jumped the drum or frayed at the bottom bracket creates the same symptom as a broken spring: heavy door, won’t stay up, opener struggles. Look at the bottom bracket on each side. The cable should be tight, seated in the drum groove, with no loose strands.
If a cable has snapped, the door will hang crooked ā one side lower than the other. Do not force it. The remaining cable will pull the door sideways, bending tracks and popping rollers.
When to Call: The Decision Line
| Symptom | Safe to DIY? | Call a Tech | |———|————–|————-| | Dead opener, outlet dead, breaker holds | No ā electrical | Electrician | | Sensor misalignment, dirty lenses | Yes | If wiring damaged | | Door balanced, moves free, opener hums | No ā capacitor/gear | Yes | | Door heavy, won’t stay up, spring gap visible | Absolutely not | Yes | | Cable off drum, frayed, or snapped | Absolutely not | Yes | | Door binds every few inches | No ā track/roller | Yes | | Remote dead, wall button works | Yes ā battery/reprogram | If reprogram fails |
What a Service Call Actually Involves
When we show up for a no-open call in Richmond, Steveston, or Broadmoor, the first 15 minutes are diagnosis: power check, sensor test, manual balance test, visual inspection of springs, cables, rollers, and tracks. If it’s a sensor or limit adjustment, you’re back in business in under an hour. A broken torsion spring on a standard 16-foot door: two springs, new cables (always replace cables with springs ā they’ve seen the same cycles), lubrication, balance check, and safety test ā typically two to three hours. Extension spring conversions to torsion are a half-day job.
Cost drivers: spring size (wire diameter, inside diameter, length), whether the shaft and drums need replacement, whether the opener gear kit is stripped from trying to lift a broken-spring door, and whether the track is bent from a cable-off event. We don’t quote over the phone because a “spring replacement” on a 20-year-old Clopay with a bent flag bracket and a stripped opener is a different job than the same spring on a three-year-old Wayne Dalton.
Prevention: What Actually Works
Lubricate the springs twice a year. White lithium grease or a dedicated garage-door spray (not WD-40 ā it’s a solvent, not a lubricant). Coil the spring, wipe excess. This is the single biggest life extender for torsion springs in coastal BC.
Test balance monthly. Disconnect the opener. Lift to waist height. Let go. If it moves more than a few inches either way, the springs are drifting out of spec. Catch it early and a tension adjustment costs a fraction of a replacement.
Keep the sensor lenses clean. A microfiber cloth in the glove box. Wipe them when you wash the car.
Don’t hang weight on the door. Bike racks, storage shelves, holiday lights ā the door wasn’t engineered for it. Added weight kills springs early and throws off the opener’s force limits.
Replace both springs. If one breaks, the other has the same cycles. Changing one guarantees a second service call within months.
Richmond Context: What We See Most
In Steveston’s older homes (1960sā80s builds), original torsion hardware is common ā solid shafts, non-standard drum sizes, springs that require custom winding. In Broadmoor and Hamilton, larger double doors (16Ć7, 16Ć8) with heavier sections push standard 10,000-cycle springs to their limit in five to six years. Terra Nova’s newer stock often has builder-grade openers with plastic drive gears that strip at 8ā10 years. The pattern holds across the city: the door that won’t open is usually a maintenance item that became an emergency.
If you’ve run the checks above and the door still won’t move, or if you found a broken spring or cable, call 778-873-7282. We’ll tell you what it is, what it takes to fix it, and what it costs ā before we start.