I locked myself out of my detached garage. The remote to open it no longer works.
It’s a really old garage and the opener is from 1999.
Trying to lift it obviously doesnt work. There’s an emergency release you can activate with a key, but the keyhole is crammed full of old hard metallic paint that I can’t get out.
Anything else I can do? Or do I have do smash the thing down?
First watch this… https://youtu.be/cVXCP8eiT70. You’ll notice that emergency release cord is actually really close to the door when it’s closed.
If you have a steel door you can push lightly on the center of the door and it will buckle in a little bit. You may dent it, but you should be able to push the dent back out. Once you have created a gap at the top of the door stick a coat hanger or something else in to grab ahold of the emergency pool rope and pull it out.
I was going to suggest this method. This is also why you remove the big plastic knob on the end of that pull cord (so the cost have trick no longer works). Thieves break into houses that way because it’s quiet and most people don’t see their closed garage door as vulnerable.