Remember when the main entrance to a home was through the front door? Not any more. Today, more than 70% of homeowners enter and exit their home through the garage door. The average garage door raises and lowers an average of four times a day.
June is National Garage Door Safety Month, and for good reason. Garage doors are extra busy in the summer. During those warm days, we’re in and out of the garage to do gardening, go for bicycle rides, set out lawn furniture, roll out the grill or take a weekend drive.
As the largest moving part of your home, maintaining garage door safety should be a part of your house maintenance schedule. And there’s no better time than now to give your garage door a thorough safety inspection, especially those equipped with automatic operators. LiftMaster, one of the most respected names in garage door openers and the brand Nask Door offers its customers, offers a few tips on what to check and how.
- Check the door’s balance. With the door closed, pull the openerrelease mechanism. Now try opening the door by hand. If it’s properly balanced, the door will lift with little effort and stay open about three or feet above the floor.
- Test the safety reversing feature. (If your door was manufactured in the U.S. since 1993, it should have one.) Safety reversing is activated by the infrared sensors or “photo eyes” installed near the floor on either side of the garage door opening. Once an obstruction of any kind breaks the invisible laser beam between these two sensors, the door should automatically reverse. If your opener lacks a safety reversing feature, consider getting a new opener.
- Measure the sensors mentioned above. Make sure they are no higher than six inches above the garage floor. If they are, a person or pet could get under the beam and not be detected by the sensors.
- Examine your garage door’s sensitivity. Place a 2”-thick piece of wood or roll of paper towels in the path of the door, then close it. The garage door should automatically reverse and go back to the open position. If it doesn’t retract, the opener needs to be adjusted. Or you could purchase a LiftMaster model that comes with photo eyes.
- Prepare for weather. Summer heat and storms often create power outages. These affect more than your lights and appliances; they also incapacitate your automatic garage door opener. To protect this from happening during outages, make sure your opener has a battery backup system.
Have you given your garage door a safety inspection?