Your garage is designed to provide basic shelter for your personal belongings, vehicles, exercise equipment; you name it. Most garage doors have some automatic lifting system for the sake of convenience and are for the most part safe for users. These built-in garage door safety features come in a few different forms, mechanical, computerized and infrared. The following is a quick rundown of each that any homeowner should familiarize themselves.
Auto-Reverse Function:
All garage door openers manufactured after 1991 have a sensor built in that detects the slightest amount of resistance while the door is closing. This a handy feature to have in case you or your child get caught under the door while in operation as it will auto reverse upon contact. The safest way to test this function though is to place something stationary, not yourself, under the door while it’s closing to make sure it’s functioning properly
Infrared Motion Detection:
Similar to the standard auto reverse function, modern automatic garage door openers have an infrared sensor mounted on the track, usually close to the ground. If anyone or any object breaks the beam, the motor stops and pulls the door back open. It should go without saying that a simple test you can do to make sure this feature is working properly is to close the door then hold a pole or push another solid object through the beam until the door stops. You can think of these systems as redundant but complimentary features.
Mechanical Release:
Since all of the previous features rely on a perfectly functioning garage door opener that’s properly powered, what happens if a bad storm or accident knocks the power out? If you ever find yourself stuck in your garage, you’ll want to look for a red handle attached to the door, usually by the opener but location varies by model. Thatis the manual release handle that bypasses your opener’s motor so that you can roll your garage up and out of the way.
All these features are mainstays of modern automatic garage door openers for the sake of keeping you and yours safe in case of an accidental run-in with your home’s largest moving appliance. Please remember when testing any of these features to use inanimate objects, and not a living being, yourself, child, pet or otherwise. You don’t want to have an accidental trip to the emergency room simply for performing routine maintenance on your home.
Ran K. is an experienced handyman who’s been working for Elite Garage Door Of Lynnwood for ten years. When he’s not fixing garage doors, he likes to share his repairment ideas and knowledge with others.
