Garage door won't open? The seven causes we find in Las Vegas

Seven reasons a garage door stops opening, in the order we find them on Las Vegas Valley calls: the three you can check yourself for nothing, and the four that need a tech, with the real installed price of each.

A garage door that will not open is usually one of seven things, and three of them cost nothing to fix: the power is out at the outlet, the red emergency release cord has been pulled, or the manual slide lock is thrown. The other four need a tech, and on our published Las Vegas price list they run from $45 to $425: a remote or keypad that needs programming at $45, a stripped opener drive gear at $165 to $245, a snapped lift cable at $140 to $220 or an off track reset at $165 to $350, and a broken torsion spring at $295 to $425 for a standard pair. Check the free three first. If the door is heavy to lift by hand, stop there and call, because that is the spring.

Start here: does the opener react at all?

Before anything else, press the wall button and listen. What the opener does narrows seven possibilities down to two or three in about five seconds, and it is the first thing we ask on the phone.

• Nothing at all, no sound, no light. Power, the outlet, or the opener's logic board. Causes 1 and 8 below.
• Light comes on, motor hums or runs, door does not move. The opener is disconnected from the door, or the drive gear is stripped. Causes 2 and 6.
• Motor runs, door lifts an inch and stops or shudders. The door is fighting something: a lock, a spring, a cable, or a track. Causes 3, 4 and 7.
• Wall button works, remote does not. It is the remote, not the door. Cause 5.

1. No power at the outlet, and the GFCI is the usual reason

Garage outlets in the newer valley tract homes are commonly on a GFCI circuit shared with the exterior outlets, so one tripped GFCI takes the opener down with it. Look at the ceiling unit: no light, no click, nothing. Check that the plug is seated, then find the GFCI outlet in the garage or on the outside wall and press Reset. Also check the breaker panel.

This one is free, it takes two minutes, and it is worth doing before you call anybody.

2. The red cord has been pulled, so the opener is not connected to the door

That red handle hanging from the rail is the emergency release. Pull it and the trolley lets go of the door so you can lift it by hand in a power cut. The catch is that the opener then runs its whole travel with nothing attached, which is exactly what people describe as the motor works but the door does not move. Using it on purpose, in the right order, is written out in <a href="/blog/how-to-open-a-garage-door-manually-las-vegas">how to open a garage door manually</a>.

To reconnect: close the door fully by hand, then pull the red handle straight back toward the opener motor (not straight down) until the trolley clicks, or simply run the opener once and let the carriage snap back onto the trolley as it passes. If the door is stuck part way up and will not come down by hand, stop: you are in cause 4 or 7 and the spring or a cable has failed.

3. The manual slide lock is thrown

Most sectional doors have a slide bar on the inside of the track, and a few have a T handle on the outside. If someone threw it before a trip, the opener will strain against a bolted door. Look along the inside of the door at about waist height for a bar sitting in a slot in the track. Slide it out. Free.

If the opener has already fought a locked door a few times, have the door looked at anyway. That is how bent top rollers and pulled hinges start, and both are cheap to fix now and not cheap later. The parts and the price are laid out on our Las Vegas garage door price list.

4. A broken torsion spring, which is the one to stop and call about

The springs above the door carry almost all of its weight. When one breaks, the opener suddenly has to lift 150 to 200 pounds it was never sized for, so it strains, trips its force setting and stops, or lifts the door a few inches and drops it. Look at the spring on the shaft above the door: a broken torsion spring shows a clear gap, usually a couple of inches wide, with the coils separated. The other tell is weight, and it is the reliable one. Pull the red release and try to lift the door by hand. A healthy door of any size floats up with two fingers. A door with a broken spring feels like lifting a fridge.

If it is heavy, put it down and leave it down. A wound torsion spring holds serious energy and the winding bars are the reason this is the one repair on a garage door we ask people not to attempt. A standard pair runs $295 to $425 installed on our price list, a single spring $185 to $265, and a high cycle pair $395 to $525. Why they fail early here, and what a cycle rating actually buys you, is covered in garage door spring repair in Las Vegas.

5. The remote is dead and the door is fine

If the wall button opens the door and the remote or the keypad does not, nothing is wrong with the door. Try a fresh battery first, which is often the whole fix. If a new battery changes nothing, the remote has lost its pairing, and a keypad that suddenly asks for a code that used to work has usually been reset by a power blip.

Programming only, using your own remote or keypad, is $45. A new remote or keypad supplied and programmed is $65 to $125. Bring the model number of the opener if you have it, and the thirty second pairing sequence is written out if you would rather try it yourself first.

6. The motor runs but nothing moves: a stripped drive gear

This is the classic grinding sound. On a chain drive opener the plastic drive gear that turns the sprocket wears down until the teeth round off, so the motor spins freely and the chain never moves. You will often find fine white or grey plastic shavings on the garage floor under the opener, which is the giveaway that separates this from a pulled release cord. A gear and sprocket kit is $165 to $245 installed, and it is worth doing on an opener that is otherwise sound. If the unit is old, a new chain drive Wi-Fi opener is $425 to $575 installed and a belt drive with battery backup $545 to $795, both with the old one hauled away. Which way to go is the judgement call in garage door opener repair in Las Vegas.

7. A snapped cable, or the door has come off its track

The photo at the top of this page is what this looks like. A lift cable frays and lets go on one side, that corner drops, and the door jams at an angle in the opening with one side out of its track. Sometimes it stops part way up and simply will not go further. It looks dramatic and it is usually a same day fix: a pair of lift cables is $140 to $220, cables plus drums $195 to $275, and an off track reset with no parts needed is $165 to $350. Do not run the opener again once a door is crooked in the opening, because that is what turns a cable job into a bent panel. The full picture is on garage door cable repair and off track repair.

Why is my garage door suddenly not opening when it worked yesterday?

Because most of these seven fail all at once rather than slowly. A spring, a cable and a drive gear all give out in a single moment, usually on the cycle right after hundreds of normal ones, which is why the door was fine last night and is a brick this morning. The three free causes are the same story from the other direction: somebody pulled a cord, threw a lock or tripped a GFCI, and nothing about the door changed at all.

The Las Vegas part is the heat and the dust. Summer attic temperatures in a valley garage swing hard, fine grit works into rollers, hinges and spring coils, and a door that gets no lubrication runs harder for it. None of that creates a failure by itself. It shortens the runway to one.

How much does it cost to fix a garage door that won't open?

Across the seven causes on this page, three cost nothing and the rest run from $45 to $425 on our published Las Vegas price list, with the most common single repair, a standard torsion spring pair, at $295 to $425 installed. The diagnosis and the written quote are $0 whether or not you go ahead, evenings and weekends carry no surcharge, and only calls after 9 pm and on holidays carry a $95 surcharge that we state on the phone before we come. Every line, with the parts and the labor shown as separate columns, is on the price list.

What to do right now, in order

1. Press the wall button and listen. Match what you hear to the list at the top of this page.
2. Check the outlet and the GFCI, look for a thrown slide lock, and check whether the red release cord is hanging loose.
3. If the opener is disconnected, close the door by hand and try to lift it. Light means the springs are fine. Heavy means stop.
4. If the door is crooked in the opening, or heavy, or you can see a gap in a spring, do not run the opener again.
5. Call or text with what you heard and what you saw. Those two answers usually tell us what is on the truck before we leave.

If the car is stuck inside and you need it today

A door that will not open with a car behind it is the call we take most often outside business hours, and we answer the phone around the clock for it. Emergency garage door repair in Las Vegas covers what a night or weekend call actually looks like, and the same flat written price applies. For everything else, garage door repair in Las Vegas is the place to start.

Call or text (702) 744-7333. Tell us what the opener does and whether the door lifts by hand, and you will get a flat written price before anything is touched. The diagnosis costs nothing even if you decide not to go ahead.

Methodology: every price on this page is a line from our published Las Vegas price list as it reads on 2026-09-23, not an estimate. The causes are listed in the order we find them on Las Vegas Valley service calls.