Garage Door Safety

Overhead Door Standards

Standards for the overhead garage door and garage door openers have changed since the early 2000 years. It is important to be in compliance with current regulations to prevent property damage and personal injury from a malfunctioning garage door. The overhead door must have an external entrapment protection, and it must include a sensor that can detect anything in the pathway of the garage door that will reverse the direction of the door if something interupts the beam while the garage door is closing.

Garage Door Statistics

There are thousands of accidents every year that are related to the garage door. These accidents always involve smashed fingers, body parts being amputated, and broken bones. 77% of overhead garage door accidents happen at a person’s home residence. Yearly, 37.7% of all garage door accidents happen during the months of June-August. 59% of these overhead door accidents are involving the fingers and hands. A smaller percentage of 23.5% happens when a garage door closes down on a person.

Overhead Door Child Precautions

One of the most important precautions is in regards to young children. They must know that playing under the overhead door is very dangerous and could cause serious accidents. The overhead garage door opener should never be accessible to a small child. The overhead garage door opener keypad that is placed on the wall needs to always be out of reach of children. The garage door opener keypad should be a minimum of 4 feet from the floor.

Testing Basic Operation of the Garage Door

There are a couple of things that you can do to test your garage door. You want to check the balance of the overhead garage door which means that the overhead garage door springs are properly spring loaded and running smoothly on the tracks. To do this, close the overhead garage door and then trip the release mechanism and this will make it possible to maneuver the overhead door manually. You want to open the door up to a few feet off of the ground and make sure that it is rolling smoothly and easily on its track, but it should stay fixed in the position that you leave it. If the overhead garage door springs up or down the balance is not adjusted properly and you need to call a professional to adjust your overhead garage door springs. Another test to do is to close the door and put your hand under the closing door and be sure that it will reverse when a bit of opposing pressure is applied manually to the door. There is also the reversing test which means you put a roll of paper towels under the door and when the sensor spots it the door should automatically go into reverse. If it doesn’t, you need to replace or update or replace the garage door opener.

General Overhead Garage Door Maintenance

In order for your overhead door to have top performance it is necessary for your garage door to be oiled regularly and be maintained and cleaned. It is recommended that you use light machine oil or a silicone lubricant on all bearings, rollers, and hinges with the exception of any plastic parts. If you do this once a month, you are sure to have a smoothly operating overhead door. Be sure that all nuts and bolts are adjusted and tighten them if necessary.