Power cut on Five Mile, opener remote dead in the driveway, or the emergency release cord pulled by a kid and the door now jammed — garage lockouts come in a lot of flavours. Here is how we handle each and what to fix afterwards.
Opener dead, no other way in
Most overhead doors have a key-operated emergency release on the outside: a small round lock in the door face. Turn it and the cable disconnects the trolley so the door lifts by hand. Lost that key? We pick or decode the little lock in a minute or two. No release lock fitted? We come in through the house side door instead — which is usually quicker than people expect, and the reason it needs a proper deadbolt.
Side door: your real front door
The garage side door on most Spokane homes has a knob lock, a hollow-core slab, and a strike held in with ¾-inch screws. It is out of sight from the street and it leads straight into the house. Treat it like the front: solid door, Grade 1 deadbolt, reinforced strike. It is a one-visit job and we do a lot of them on the north side and in the Valley.
Garage-to-house door
Fire code usually makes this a solid-core, self-closing door — which is good — but it often has no lock at all because "the garage is closed". Put a keyed deadbolt on it, keyed alike to the rest of the house. If someone does get into the garage, they should be standing in front of a locked door, not in your kitchen.
Opener remotes and keypads
- Erase and re-pair all remotes when you move in — previous owners keep them in cars they sell
- Use a rolling-code opener; older fixed-code units can be cloned from the street
- Do not leave the remote clipped to the visor of a car parked outside overnight
- A vacation lock on the opener disables remotes while you are away
The emergency release from outside — safely
The trick videos show — fishing the release cord with a coat hanger through the top of the door — works on many openers in seconds, which is exactly why burglars use it. Zip-tie the release lever so it still works with a firm pull from inside but not a hook from outside, or fit a release shield. We do both during any garage visit.
Questions we get
The door is stuck half open after the release was pulled.
Lift it fully by hand, then pull the cord toward the door to re-engage the trolley and run the opener once. If the springs are the problem — the door is heavy or crooked — that is a garage-door company, not us, and we will say so.
Can you key the side door to the house key?
Yes, and you should. One key for every exterior door is a security feature: nothing left unlocked because the right key was inside.
Detached garage with no power?
A keyed deadbolt on the service door and a quality padlock with a shrouded shackle on the overhead — no wiring needed.
Around Spokane
Alley-facing garages in the older grid neighbourhoods — Logan, Emerson-Garfield, East Central — are the most common entry point we see after a break-in, and the side door is almost always how it happened.
