At Twin City Garage Door, safety is of paramount importance. This includes the safety of the product we install and work on, as well as the safety of our crews out on the job sites and in our warehouses.
When our team is working on a project, whether it’s a repair or a new installation, our technicians always check both the garage door and the opener before they leave. What are they looking for?
- The opener should reverse the garage door when the photo beam is broken.
- The garage door should also reverse when contact is made 6” from the floor.
- The garage door push button mounted on the wall should be at least 5 feet from the ground to prevent children from playing with the door.
And not all garage doors are created equal. There are clear safety concerns, especially for doors manufactured before 1991. That year, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) published regulations, required by Congress, to protect young children from being trapped under garage doors. The new law required that:
- All garage door operators must provide a reversing system to reverse a downward moving door within two seconds after the door contacts a two-inch high test block placed on the floor in the door’s path.
- All garage door operators must re-open the door within 30 seconds of the start of movement in the downward direction if the mechanism senses that the door did not fully close to the garage floor.
- Once the door is moving down, the door must stop, and may reverse, if the control button is pushed again. If the door is moving up, pushing the control button must stop the door and prevent it from moving downward.
- All garage door operators must have a manually operated means to detach the operator from the door.
What does this mean? It means there are definite safety concerns if you have a garage door manufactured before 1991. Our technicians can assess your garage door and review any safety concerns with you.
Here are some other guidelines from the CPSC to keep in mind:
- Replace older automatic garage door openers that meet federal safety standard. This could prevent entrapment or even death.
- Test the garage door opener’s reverse function. If this does not behave as expected, do not attempt to fix yourself. Call a professional.
- Inspect the garage door and the opener every month to make sure they are both working properly.
- Check the springs, hard, and fittings. Again, if something doesn’t seem right, be sure to call a professional – it’s not worth the risk. If Twin City Garage Door installs your new garage door, there is also a 5 year warranty on the springs and hardware.
- Keep the remote away from children. Just as the button on the wall needs to be installed high enough to keep away from children, so should the remote. Talk to your kids about garage door safety and explain that these are not toys.
All of this can keep you and your family safe. If you ever have questions or concerns about the safety of your garage door, don’t hesitate and give the team at Twin City Garage Door a call!
