Garage Safety Tips
Most of us don't think of a garage as being a dangerous place
. The worst thing that's happened to me has been getting my fingers checked in the door. Don't get me wrong, it hurt. But calling a garage a dangerous place? That sounds like fear mongering from industry big wigs. Just about the worst thing I could imagine happening in a garage would be that you had too many Donna Summer eight track tapes stacked up in there, and they just fell on you. But, as I came to find out through a little research, people have been maimed and even killed by garage door springs, cables and even by their doors.
I couldn't believe it. It's one of the last places that I would ever expect to even scrape my knee, and people were getting killed in there. So, I thought I would play the Good Samaritan and compile all that I'd learned to help others stay safe in their garage. Here are a few tips I found:
a) If you're going to do it yourself, follow the instructions in the manual. Don't think you know what you're doing, check it out.
Technicians and service providers are always happy to help you. Some of the systems involved with opening and closing your garage are pretty complex; no one's going to laugh.
b) If you cannot clearly see your garage door, don't close it. The safety systems on your door can fail if not regularly serviced, and even if they are. So make sure you don't play a part in trapping a child or your cat underneath the door.
c) Make sure that you have a reinforcement bracket on the top section of your garage door. If you don't know if you do, have a technician check it out. Failure to install one can damage your door and that's a lot of weight to come down on you.
d) If your door feels heavy or slams down, it's probably out of balance. You can balance it yourself, but it's a better idea to get someone to do it for you. It's not your driver system, as most people think. So you probably don't have to spring for a more powerful unit. This is a very common problem.
e) Check your garage doors reversal sensitivity. Put a concrete or wooden block, even a chair would work, underneath the door and press the remote to close it. If your door doesn't automatically reverse upon contact with the object, its sensitivity needs to be calibrated.
f) If your garage door has been installed since 1993, then it has a sensor or photoelectric eye that will cause it to automatically reverse when the beam is broken by an object. Make sure this works. Remember, your pets are smaller than you so never have this beam more than 6 inches off the ground. If you don't have this feature on your super old garage door, have it installed.
g) A good rule of thumb for life is that if a child can get into something, they will. Make sure that all wall buttons are at least 5 feet off of the ground. Keep your remotes, keypads and what have you out of the reach of children. Warn your children of the potential dangers of messing with the garage door.
h) Thieves will also try to get into anything they can, and they've gotten smarter. If you park your car outside, make sure you lock it so they can't enter your garage and home. Also, there's something called rolling code technology where they can steal your garage remotes signal as your using it. Then they can enter when you leave. Ask a technician or consult your manual on whether or not your remote has rolling code technology.
i) Make sure your springs are in good health. Torsion springs especially can be hazardous to the owner, but extension springs can cause injury as well. Have a technician inspect your springs to make sure they're in good working order. They'll also make your door run better.
j) Inspect your garage door cables. If the cables and belts that help your door operate are worn or frayed, they can break and seriously injure someone. Go ahead and call the technician for that one too.
k) If you have extension springs, you need a safety cable. If you don't know if you have one, check to see if there is a cable that runs down the center of your springs. That's the one! Make sure it's in good health. They don't call it a safety cable because it protects the springs.
l) Like I should have known, watch your fingers. Don't ever place your fingers between the garage doors sections or underneath the door while it's closing. There is pinch resistant technology, just like child proofing your home; so if it's really difficult for you to resist putting your fingers in there, get it.
m) Check that your tamper resistant brackets are in good working condition. These are attached to your springs and are under extreme tension. Don't mess with these. If they look worn or like they're coming loose, call a professional.
n) When replacing any part of your garage door unit, make sure that the parts are compatible. There are a wide array of shapes, sizes, gauges and materials used in the industry and not all of them go together. An example of this being bad is when your entire garage door is mounted on a track that is too small and not graded for the weight of the door. Yeah, that bad.
We can all avoid most of these problems with simple upkeep. Regular maintenance calls can be the difference between your garage door doing its job and it lying on top of your car in pieces. Keep the manual handy too. You can save yourself a lot of money on many of the more minor procedures of maintenance. Check to see if your parts are approved by
DASMA and the IDA. These groups spend all of their time worrying about the quality of doors so that you don't have to. And I, personally, don't want to spend any time thinking about doors. There are always technicians that are willing to provide
excellent services on your garage doors if you need them. Well, there it is. That's my little blurb on how to stay safe in your garage. I hope you use these tips, because getting trapped under a garage door seems pretty lame. Oh, and don't stack your Donna Summer collection so high.
Garage Safety Tips
By: Brock Frye
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