Nine times out of ten this is a battery or a reprogramming job, not a broken door. Here's how to work out which one you've got.
This is one of the most common calls we get, and it is also the one most likely to have a two-minute answer. Before you assume the opener has died, work through these.
First: is it the remote, or the door?
Press the wall button inside the garage. If the door runs normally from the wall button, the door and the opener are both fine and you have a remote or keypad problem — which is a much smaller thing to fix.
Batteries, in both places
Remotes take a small coin cell that tends to fade rather than die outright, so the classic symptom is a remote that works from three feet away but not from the driveway. Outdoor keypads have their own battery too, and it lives outside in Texas weather, so it has a harder life than the one in the remote. Replace both before assuming anything worse.
Range problems that are not the remote's fault
If a new battery has not helped and the remote works up close, something may be interfering with the signal. LED bulbs in or near the opener are a surprisingly common culprit, and so are other electronics sharing the circuit. Try the opener's own light with a different bulb before writing off the remote.
Reprogramming
Remotes and keypads can lose their pairing with the opener — after a power cut, after a battery has been out for a while, or after somebody pressed the learn button on the opener. Most openers have a documented sequence to pair them again. If you have moved into a house and inherited a keypad whose code nobody knows, it can be reset the same way, and that is worth doing anyway.
When to just replace it
Remotes get dropped, sat on, and left in cars in August. Keypads live outdoors and eventually the buttons stop responding or water gets in. If a unit is cracked, waterlogged, or will no longer hold its pairing, replacing it is usually the sensible end of the story rather than something worth chasing further.
We fix and set up replacement remotes and entry keypads to work with your opener. If you are not sure what your opener needs, call and tell us what is written on the unit and we will sort out what will work with it.
