GARAGE DOOR REPAIR and GARAGE DOOR OPENER REPAIR AVAILABLE 24/7
R.G. Specialty Development Garage Door Company
669222
Garage Door Safety, Opener Safety and Liability Issues to Consider
Your garage door is the largest & heaviest moving object in your house. Improperly installed or poorly functioning garage doors or openers can be a hazard leading to injury of a friend, family member, neighbor or a pet, not to mention property damage to your vehicle.
Nationally there have been deaths to children in recent years due to malfunctioning or unsafe garage door openers. The most common situation of danger is an older garage door opener without a proper electric reversing system ( it either has no safety sensors or has sensors which are not properly mounted near the bottom of the track on both sides of the door.) There were national standards established in 1992 for this situation. If your garage door opener does not have the safety sensors mounted on the lower track, chances are high that your opener will not be demeaned as a “compliant opener”, (not conforming to this national standard.)
This has two implications for the homeowner. First - repairs to these machines will not be made because the standards prevent service companies from maintaining these dangerous “non-compliant” openers. The standards intend to encourage homeowners to replace these unsafe machines with new safe machines. Secondly – you face a significant legal liability by continuing to operate a garage door opener without the electronic reversing system. If a child, were to be trapped by the closing door with a non-compliant opener on it there will be very little legal ground to stand on in your defense. Not to mention the awful feeling that would haunt you about the injury or possible death to this trapped person.
Improper installation of the safety sensors (ie: having them mounted too high or next to each other so they can not perform their proper function when something gets in the way of the closing door) will also result in a non-complaint opener situation. For liability reasons repair service companies will point out this situation and place a “non-complaint” tag on your opener thus communicating to the homeowner that a dangerous situation needs to be corrected. In this situation the solution is easy – just move the safety sensors to their proper location and a “non–complaint” opener condition is avoided. A much safer situation will result for the homeowner and anyone who might pass under a closing garage door.
Other dangerous situations arise when homeowners attempt to do repairs or adjustments of their door springs or bottom brackets. When the springs are under tension both the springs & bottom bracket should be adjusted by a trained professional repairman. These springs do the actual lifting of the doors & have a 300-500 lb explosive force on them. Significant injuries may result to innocent homeowners who try to tackle these high tension situations.
Finally garage doors will become out of adjustment due to normal wear & functioning. Homeowners need to proceed with caution in touching track & other metal parts which might have sharpened edges due to wear. These can be extremely sharp and can severely lacerate hands or fingers.
Homeowners can severely pinch their fingers when they grab the top of a door section from the outside and attempt to close the door manually by pulling down on the door section. This situation results from many door installations not having outside handles on them because the door is typically closed by a garage door opener. The solution to this is to have a handle or step plate attached to the outside of the door so there will be something to grab onto to close the door, or consider replacing the door with the new pinch resistant designed doors.