As we continue to celebrate National Garage Door Safety month, the professionals at PGD will like to share with you a list of maintenance tips to ensure your garage door is safe and secure. Be sure to tell everyone in the house you are doing maintenance on the garage door to avoid serious injuries and/or property damage.
Organizing Your Garage
In many households, the garage is used as an extended closet, or storage place for the family. Ideally, we will all like to park our vehicles inside the safety of our garage, but the truth is some of us have too much stuff stored inside to make that a reality. The garage is normally used to store items that do not fit inside the house.
Keep your garage door organized by using pegboards, milk crates and plastic storage totes. These storage utensils are a great fit because you can see everything! No need to guess what is inside. If you really want to be organized, you can have a summary on each plastic storage totes of what is inside making it easier to find a missing item.
You can also use old metal garbage cans. You can recycle them and use them for storing fertilizer, dog food and other items.
Standard Garage Door Safety Features
In the 1993, federal law required all manufacturers of residential garage doors change the way they make their product. All residential garage doors manufactured after January 1st, 1993 must have the following:
- A built-in automatic reverse feature that reverses two seconds after sensing an object is under the garage door.
- A 30-second reverse timer that activates the garage door to open 30 seconds after sensing the door has not fully closed.
- Have a secondary entrapment protection system. (Example: edge sensor, a photoelectric eye etc.)
- The ability to close the garage door with manufacturer’s suggested devices. (Example: remote, keypad, etc.)
It is very important to make sure that all sensors are active on your garage door. If the sensors are not working properly, the garage door will continue to close, even when something is under the door. You can test this functionality by placing an object below the garage door when you close it. The sensors mentioned above will cause the door to reverse if something is stopping the door from closing.
Maintenance To Prevent Costly Repairs
You should get in the routine of visually inspecting the mechanical parts of your garage door on a regular basis. Open and close your garage door to see that everything looks and sounds correct. If there is something that looks out of place, or if your garage door is noisy, call a service technician to diagnose the issue right away.
Keep an eye on the rollers, tracks, springs, cables, pulleys, bolts, angles and struts that allow the garage door to function properly. Make sure they are lubricated and in working condition. These parts on the garage door can easily become worn down over time if not maintained.
Preventing Garage Door Injuries
The best way to avoid injuries is to always keep your hands and body away from the garage door while its opening or closing. It is important to teach your children and others in the household about garage door safety. Small children are well known for playing with the garage door opener to pass time during summer. Teaching your family how to operate the garage door safely can prevent injuries in the future.
Inspecting your garage door regularly is also essential to maintaining a safe garage for yourself and others. You can save money by doing it yourself, but hiring a trained professional to tune-up your garage door will ensure safety and security. Have the comfort of knowing your garage door will be functioning.
Safe and Secure
PGD recommend that you have more than one way of accessing and opening your garage door. We suggest at least 3 ways to open your garage in the case of an power outage, lost or stolen device. Make sure you test your garage door opener devices on a regular basis so you are always able to open and close the garage door when needed.
There are also ‘Smart’ garage doors that allows you to control your garage door from a smartphone or tablet. Call (602) 870-9848 now if you are interested in transforming your garage to a ‘Smart’ garage door.
