A garage door and a garage door opener should be dependable. The door should open in most any weather (considering of course you’ve winterized certain components—see the previous two blog posts for ideas on how to do this) because we need the door to be as reliable to our time schedule as anything else in our lives. However, a garage door and garage door opener should also be dependably safe; children, pets, and our belongings should be safe around it. But how do you go about ensuring that your garage door or opener is dependably safe?

Safety Features

New garage doors and openers come with safety features built in. This is a result of legislation. These safety features include a device, which (to give a non-technical explanation) works as an all-seeing eye: there are two devices (the eyes), which are positioned at opposing sides of the garage door, and these eyes essentially watch each other, emitting a beam of light between the two, and, when the beam is broken, the door will not lower to a closed position (unless you override the safety features on the garage door opener). Another safety feature (although one not found on every new garage door) is a unique joint at the connection of separate garage door panels, which prevents fingers from becoming lodged in the garage door, by essentially pushing out anything from the joint as it closes.

Tips for staying safe

It’s a good idea to explain to children that, if improperly used, the garage door could hurt them. Children shouldn’t be allowed to play with the garage door or with the opener. Never walk beneath a garage door after you’ve closed it—if you must close the garage door from the inside—and you then try to outrun the closing garage door—it may be time to invest in a portable garage door opener, if you don’t already have one at home. Remember that garage door openers operate by electricity, and, if you have a problem with your garage door, that all power should be turned off at the fuse box before any repairs are made.

We hope these tips help you to stay safe around garage doors. And, if your current garage door, or garage door opener, model is without safety features, give Bailey Garage Doors a call today to discuss your options to keeping safe.