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Essential Garage Door Safety Features – Accidents happen every day.
It comes in a blow of unexpected circumstances and hits you before you even know it.
We are just human.
Thus, what we do is to ensure that safety precautions are in place before setting out to do something, such as operating a machine.
A garage door does not only add up to the beauty and value of your home.
It also does the work of securing your property too.
While it is merely used for opening and closing your parking, contrary to popular belief, it does an excellent job of ensuring safety to the family’s storage and even the overall house itself.
If you look closely, certain garage door safety features are equipped in your doors.
It allows for a smooth transaction that prevents accidents from happening.
Especially when it comes to kids, they might be susceptible to dangerous incidents involving your garage door.
If you are not sure whether your door has these features, here is a list of them for you to check.
Auto-reverse Feature
Homes with an automatic garage door opener are usually built-in with a set of safety features that prevent the door from moving when something is blocking its path.
It often does the reverse of the movement when its photo-eye detects something below.
The auto-reverse feature is possible for this.
It has a motion detection sensor that lets the opener detect objects.
It is also equipped with a force setting and allows it to feel the object moving below it when it makes contact.
To check whether your garage door has this feature, try to place some hard objects below the garage door and try to close it.
If it does not auto-reverse, you should have the feature installed.
On the other hand, the feature might be broken so you could have it fixed.
Contact a garage door repair technician to give you a hand in solving the problem.
Safety Balance
Your garage door typically has a set of springs (usually standard torsion springs) holding the garage door when it lifts up to open.
The springs are in charge of the garage door‘s weight and balance so that it can operate smoothly without any interruptions.
The balance feature contributes to the minimization of the stress of the components’ operations (e.g., cables, springs, the opener).
Create a schedule for the maintenance of your garage and have them check its balance.
They will be able to identify whether the door is in a proper balanced position.
If not, you will be asked to order a repair.
Repairs may prevent future accidents from happening in the long run.
Manual Operation Feature
Did you know that you can actually operate your garage door manually?
If you have an electric automatic garage door opener, that is.
It is a built-in feature that allows you to switch to manual control in case of an emergency power outage.
You can simply unplug the door from the power system.
To do this, locate the emergency red cord positioned near the door trolley.
Get a ladder (if it is too far) and simply release the rope.
It will disconnect the door from the motor immediately and allow you to open and close the door on your own.
You have to make sure that the door is closed before attempting to pull the cord as it might crash down on you on its own without the safety sensors in operation.
To switch it back to its automatic operation, simply reconnect the trolley to the garage door opener’s carriage.
However, if you are going to do this, check online for specific instructions on how to control the door manually to get tips for safety.
Just to make sure, contact your technician as well for help, especially if it gets stuck in the open position.
For people living in Ottawa, Kanata, Orleans, and Ontario, you can contact a garage door repair service if your garage door does not have any of those features or if they are broken, in that case.
If your garage door is relatively new, you can bet that it has those safety features.
