9 Garage Door Safety Tips To Keep Your Home And Family Safe

Automated garage doors were invented to make our lives easier. And they serve this purpose with great efficiency. Nevertheless, if not handled properly, used safely, and maintained regularly, garage doors may also become a potential risk.

 

Garage Door Safety Tips

 

Garage door safety is important for the safety of your family and your possessions. It is also important for the safety of your house and the garage in general. Garage door safety is a serious concern because if the garage door malfunctions, it can lead to serious injuries and property damage.

 

Garage Door Repair

1) Regular Maintenance Checks

Garage doors should be inspected by an expert at least twice a year to ensure they work properly and pose no danger to you or your family members. Regular checks can be done as a self-inspection or a professional maintenance call.

 

Self-inspection: You can perform a self-inspection anytime, by checking the springs, pulleys, cables, rollers, and garage door opener, testing the functionality by yourself. However, if you spot a problem with cables, springs, or pulleys, DO NOT and we repeat DO NOT try to fix it yourself. This could pose a serious danger if done without professional expertise.

A professional garage door company like American Garage Doors can be contacted for your regular maintenance checks. We can provide you with expert consulting and recommendations to keep your garage door safe.

 

Book a garage door maintenance call today and get a free inspection for the next month

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2) Testing safety sensors

Safety sensors are an important part of garage door functionality. If the working of a safety sensor is compromised, this can be a potential risk.

As a part of your regular checks, you need to put it in your calendar to frequently check your garage door safety sensors. Other maintenance problems might wait, but this feature must always be in top-notch condition.

Self-inspection: To test the garage door safety sensor by yourself, you need to do the following:

  • Open the garage door
  • Put some soft object directly underneath the door, for example, a stuffed teddy bear
  • Try closing the garage door from a distance
  • Ideally, as soon as the door touches the stuffed toy it should immediately stop and roll back up.

In case the sensors are compromised, you need to immediately call a professional & get it fixed at the earliest. Inform the entire household about the malfunction and keep an eye on its usage until fixed.

 

3) Keep the remote out of children’s reach

Garage door openers are not toys. Let this be the first lesson in garage door safety for your children. Having taught them not to touch the opener, you must also take good care that the garage door openers and remotes are safely out of the access of small children. This is imperative for the safety of the children themselves.

 

4) Practice Caution

Teaching our kids about garage door safety is important and this is another good lesson. Never walk under the door while it’s moving. Standing underneath it, exiting, or entering while the door is in operation is extremely dangerous and can cause serious injury. To put this into perspective, the average garage door weighs somewhere between 130 to 500 pounds. And because machines can fail, you cannot afford a person or a pet to be hit by that crushing weight.

So it’s better to practice caution.

 

5) Always close the door completely

This should be another important lesson in garage door safety. When you are opening or closing the door, make sure to complete the operation and not leave it midway. Sometimes, you may be tempted to leave the door ajar for pets to enter the house, or let some fresh air in. as a regular practice, this can lead to some security risks, as intruders might see it as an opportunity to enter your premises, uninvited. Plus, a small child or a pet may come underneath the door, as it is reactivated, posing a serious danger to their safety.

 

6) Unplug when not using it for a long time

If you are going on a vacation or even leaving the house for a couple of days, make sure to unplug the door opener unit so that it cannot be used while you are away. Alternatively, you can lock the unit and reactivate it when you arrive back in town.

 

7) Keep the codes to yourself

Security codes are called so for a reason. They are the passwords that are the key to entering your house. Even with a detached garage, it’s best not to share your security codes with anyone. In the wrong hands, leaked security codes can compromise the safety of your home and your family.

 

8) Change your password on a rolling basis

Taking the security code and password point further, it is also a good idea to keep switching your password, so if anyone is trying to guess it or came across one by accident, you should still be able to protect your house and the household by having it changed regularly.

 

9) Keep your fingers safe

Never engage with a garage door by putting your fingers between the sections or under the door or trying to lift manually without really knowing how to do it properly and safely. In fact, do not put your fingers in any part of the garage door, even if you think it’s easy to fix. Fingers can get badly stuck and again is a potential risk.

 

Do not ignore these garage door safety tips

Having detailed all these tips, and explained the hazards they might pose, we only have one piece of advice for our valued clients. Do not ever ignore the safety tips. Garage Doors are gigantic structures controlled by machines. One malfunctioning part can cause serious damage and we do not want you to be the victim.

 

As soon as you find something amiss, call us at: (972) 400-5785 and our expert team of garage door specialists will reach you at their earliest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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