How to open a locked garage door?

anytime a homeowner gets locked out of their garage then this means that the garage only has one entry way and that is the garage door itself this is common in detached garages. There are several different ways to lock a garage door the first is a keyed T handle lock that you can unlock your garage door from the outside with a key and then turn the handle to unlock the door and open it. Another form of garage door lock is a slide lock which is a very small box with a slide handle on either the right or left hand side on the inside of the garage this slide lock just slides a piece of thick metal through the garage door track so that the door cannot be opened. The other way to lock the garage door would be to have installed a garage door opener when a garage door opener is in the down position it locks the garage door to keep anyone from just opening it up.

lock system that requires a key

If you have a lock system that requires a key to open the garage door and you have misplaced or lost the key when I would say the cheapest way would be to call a locksmith to make a new key for your lock handle. Otherwise you will probably have to cut a hole in the garage door so you can stick your hand inside and unlock it. This means you will have to replace the section that you cut a hole in and I’m sure it’s going to be a little bit more expensive to replace the panel then to call out a locksmith.

garage door locked

If you just have a basic small slide lock on your garage door then you are most likely going to have to cut a hole in the garage door to reach in and unlock the door because I don’t see any other way to get to that slide lock and slide it to unlock it. Now if all you have is a garage door opener that keeps your garage door locked when it is closed then you should have a vault lock. A vault lock is an emergency release lock that you use a key and turn lock and it pulls a cable out of the garage door which this cable is attached to the emergency release handle on the garage door opener once the emergency release handle is this disengaged then the door can be opened manually by hand. All building codes that I know of require you to have one of these emergency locks on a single entry garage that has a garage door opener. You can tell if you have one of these locks on your garage door because it will be right in the middle of the top panel of the garage door and you will see where you can insert a key and this lock is not very big it is probably 1″ x 1″. If you are in this situation or you know that you only have one entry to the garage and you do have a garage door opener but you do not have a vault lock installed then you might want to install one ASAP to save you the hassle of getting locked out of your garage door especially if the power goes out.

garage door has windows

If your garage door has windows near the top of the door then releasing the emergency handle on the garage door is as easy as just breaking a glass window and clearing out all the shards of glass so you don’t cut yourself and then reach in and pull down on the red emergency release handle to disengage the garage door opener so you can open the door manually. Then all you have to replace is the glass in the window that you have broken which should not cost very much at all. If your garage has windows on the sides or on the back wall of your garage then this my also be a way to access your garage whether it is prying the window open or breaking some glass on it to get into the garage