C.H.I. garage door safety tips
A garage door is a great way to add convenience, functionality and personality to your home. However, garage doors and openers can also be a safety and or security hazard that you should be aware of. Here are six great tips to help keep you, your family and your belonging’s safe.
1. Test Your Sensors
It’s critical to ensure that your garage door sensors are working properly, especially for your safety. Any garage door sensors that are not operational can lead to a dangerous situation. Place a piece of wood or a paper towel roll, as a fake obstruction, in the path of your garage door to test your sensors. Press the garage door button to see what happens. If the door starts moving at all, it’s time to call an expert.
2. Child Safety
If you have children, follow these safety guidelines to help keep them safe:
Don’t let them play with your garage door remote. Make sure that the wall mounted buttons are out of their reach. Ensure that step stools and ladders are not accessible to children. To help your children be safe, explain the hazards of a garage door. For security reasons, teach them not to provide the garage door passcode. Also, teach them to keep their hands and fingers clear of section joints, hinges, tracks, springs and other door parts.
3. Opener Emergency Release
Learn how to operate your garage door’s emergency release feature. This can come in handy if you ever need to detach the garage door opener from the garage door in an emergency. This is a safety feature that every family member should know how to do. Read the instructions in your owner’s manual or have a qualified professional demonstrate how to do this for you.
NOTE: Be sure the garage door is in the down position before you disengage the door from the opener. Garage doors can be extremely heavy and extremely dangerous if they come crashing down.
4. Sharing Your Passcode
Newer garage door systems now allow you to create special user-specific and one-time passcodes for your visitors. If a code is ever leaked, having a user-specific and one-time passcode will enable you to make changes and secure your home again. If your passcodes ever become known to others, your safety and valuables are at risk. Avoid giving out the master code.
5. Leaving Your Garage Door Partially Open
Stray animals or pest can get in. Thieves take this as an invitation to come in as well. It can increase your energy bill, due to the need to air condition or heat the area due to the door being open. Also, it causes wear and tear on the opener. When the door is closed the opener motor is at rest but when it is partially open it keeps running. Which can lead to faulty operation or motor burnout.
6. Perform regular Maintenance and Inspections
This tip we have talked about before, but it is a very important tip. Some homeowners ignore signs of wear and tear on their garage door components and having an unbalanced garage door. You can prevent accidents from happening, plus costly repairs by regularly inspecting and maintaining your garage door.
Hopefully this helps you with the safety and security of your home. And as always if you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to call our office.