New garage door openers usually come with instructions from the manufacturer. The person who installed your opener may or may not have left an instruction manual behind, and if you inherited an old opener when you bought a house, there's a good chance the instructions are long gone.

It's always wise to have instructions for your garage door opener. They will tell you how to find and solve many problems, how to reprogram the garage door opener, and what you should do in the way of routine maintenance.

Some problems, however, are pretty simple to take care of (see Troubleshooting the Most Common Garage Door Opener Problems for some advice). Answers to many common questions relating to garage door openers can be found here.

Most manufacturers of garage door openers make instruction manuals available on the Web. To make sure you get the right instructions, however, it will help to know both the manufacturer and the model number of your garage door opener. You can find this information on the receiver or motor unit mounted inside the garage.

You may have a garage door opener that was made by a company that no longer makes this product (Stanley, for example). In that case, tracking down an instruction manual may be more trouble than it's worth. Save yourself the headache by calling a veteran garage door installer (this article may help you find a good contractor).

For downloadable garage door opener instructions, click on the appropriate brand below:

• Liftmaster garage door opener instruction manuals

• Chamberlain garage door opener instruction manuals
• Sears Craftsman garage door opener instruction manuals
• Genie garage door opener instruction manuals