Garage Safety Tips — To Eliminate Potential Hazards

The garage is a main place in our homes that is often considered to be the weakest link in the safety chain of the entire home. But by following some garage safety tips we can avoid many potential hazards and security threats. No matter how efficient and sophisticated your garage door is but as far as complete safety and security is concerned you should pay proper attention to them. Apart from annual replacement and safety checks by company professionals, proper checking on regular bases e.g. at least once in every 30 days is the best practice. Parts of door such as springs, cables, rollers, pulleys and other door hardware items are under extremely high tension so general wear and tear is very normal. If they show any signs of wear and tear, it is important to have them repaired or replaced by a professionally qualified garage door technician.

According to many research findings, most of the injuries in homes are due to garage doors, as they are the largest and heaviest moving objects in any house and quite often neglected. People don’t realize that following garage safety tips can be important. For example, most of the garage doors are equipped with automatic door closure or opener, but we hardly get time to check their automatic reversing feature. As a result many people die or get injured due to entrapment between the moving doors..

According to Consumer Product Safety Alert by CPSC, approximately 60 children between the ages of 2 and 14 have been trapped and killed due to entrapment between automatic garage doors since March 1982. Although, this is approximately 4 such deaths per year, but these can be easily avoided. Other children have suffered brain damage or serious injuries when the closing door contacted them, and failed to stop and reverse its direction. Similarly, there are other sources that clearly show that most of these injuries and deaths are caused by the automatic garage doors which didn’t have automatic reverse mechanism to reverse the door. Almost every garage door manufactured after 1992 has this reverse mechanism installed, but in case the door is older than that then it should be the first priority of every homeowner to get it installed in your existing door. If possible, such garage doors should be replaced with new garage doors as CPSC’s safety guidelines require that all garage door operators manufactured or imported after January 1, 1993, for sale in the US should be fitted with an external entrapment protection system. This system can be an electric eye, a door edge sensor, or any other device that provides equivalent protection. If an electric eye is used, it should be installed at a height of 4 to 6 inches above the floor. Additionally, ask your children to play away from these doors and educate them about their functioning and potential hazards. Always buy garage doors from reputed companies which are CPSC certified and UL approved.

About The Author:

John Wright is a successful author and regular contributor to http://www.garage-doors-n-openers.com. Find everything you need to know about free garage plans, commercial and residential openers, installation tips, and more.