Garage Door Safety Tips

With Christmas just around the corner, it’s important to take the proper steps to ensure the safety of you and your loved ones, even with household equipment that gets used every day. Garage doors, when used improperly, can cause injuries and worse. So, stay safe this season and follow these tips:

  1. Never allow children to play the garage door or around it when it’s open or moving.
  2. Don’t let kids play with the remote or push button wall controls.
  3. Avoid standing or walking under a moving garage door.
  4. Keep the door in full view until it’s fully closed or opened.
  5. Keep your fingers and hands away from sections of the door while it’s opening or closing.
  6. Ensure your door remains in great shape with regular garage door repairs and maintenance.
  7. If you’re having electrical issues, make sure they’re addressed by a trained service technician.
  8. Never try to repair garage door springs or cables. They are best repaired by a trained tech as these parts are under extreme tension.
  9. If you or someone else has backed into the garage door, it’s important to have it inspected and/or repaired by a service technician. Have it inspected even if it doesn’t look to be severely damaged as the operating system may have been misaligned and wear prematurely.

The Premium Garage Door Service team hopes you have a fun, safe holiday season!

Garage Door Repair: What You Can Do, and What You Shouldn’t

Every part of your home will need some type of maintenance sooner or later, and you will be faced with a garage door repair at some point. Just as with the rest of your home, there are some types of maintenance that you can perform yourself if you are the do-it yourself type. On the other hand, unless you have special training and experience, there are some kinds of repairs that you should not attempt to do.

You can perform minor maintenance and cleaning of your air conditioning system and major appliances, but without the proper knowledge and training, it would not be safe to attempt to repair a refrigeration problem or to get involved with electrical repairs. The same is true when it comes to garage door repair.

So, what kinds of garage door repair are safe for the average homeowner to do? Well, preparing for and applying a fresh coat of paint or replacing a broken pane of glass is easy enough. You can also check that the tracks are clean and lubricate the rollers (don’t lubricate nylon rollers). If you have detailed instructions, you can check the alignment of the tracks, verify the correct adjustment of the safety switches, and check the balance of the door. These last items are approaching the border between the “highly qualified do-it-yourself” homeowner, and the “it’s-time-to-call-a-professional” homeowner.

Keep in mind that your garage door weighs hundreds of pounds. If a safety switch is not set and operating properly, serious damage or injury could result. If the tracks are not aligned correctly, or the balance is incorrect, the door could jam or the door opener could be overloaded. One specific caution: never attempt to adjust or replace torsion springs. They are pre-tensioned to enormous pressure that could easily break a wrist or even be lethal. You definitely need to call a professional garage door repair technician for this.

Always Secure Your Garage Door for Home Safety

News like the following are among the scariest experiences any of us can go through. Earlier this week, KSTP reported:

The New Brighton Department of Public Safety says a home was burglarized after the resident left a garage door open overnight.

The burglary was reported around 11 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 11, on the 1200 block of Robin Lane. The victim says the overhead garage door was accidentally left open and several items were taken overnight.

Law enforcement officials are reminding community members to double-check doors at night and look out for neighbors if they accidentally leave their doors open.

The Premium Garage Door Service team has seen many news reports this summer detailing how homes were burglarized or broken into, and the entry point was an open or unlocked garage door. While garage doors are a wonderful convenience to have, it’s important it’s properly secured or it can be utilized in ways it shouldn’t be. Make sure this doesn’t happen to your home by always following these tips:

  • NEVER give out your garage door access code to strangers
  • ALWAYS close your garage door when you’re not home or you’re away from the garage
  • MAKE sure your garage door is locked at all times that it’s not open
  • IF you have windows on your garage door, cover them with curtains
  • DON’T leave your garage door opener in plain view
Some Final Garage Door Safety Tips

Tomorrow is the last day of June, which also means it’s the last day of National Garage Door Safety Month. Before we head off into July, we’d like to offer up a few garage door safety tips so that you, as well as those you care about, are as safe as possible around your garage door, the largest moving object in your home.

  • Keep the garage door out of the reach of any small children.
  • Also remind small children that they shouldn’t place fingers near any cracks or crevices in the garage door.
  • Establish a rule with older children — the garage door remote is not a toy.
  • Visually inspect the garage door yourself every month for anything out of the ordinary, and call a St Paul Garage Door repair specialist if you find something wrong.
  • Always keep your garage door either completely open or completely closed. Don’t leave the door partially open.
  • When on vacation, be sure to unplug your automatic garage door opener so that no one can use a stolen remote to gain unauthorized entry to your garage.

We hope you’ve had a great month in June, and a safe month with your garage door. We’ll see you in July!

Standard Garage Door Torsion Springs

Standard torsion springs are the most common type of garage door springs, and are found usually when one or two springs are installed, though more than four can be used for garages that require wide openings.

Standard torsion springs can be installed in one of four different system configurations: linear, duplex, triplex or mixed.

  • Linear: Used mostly on wide garage doors
  • Duplex: Two larger springs are used, with each spring having a smaller one inside
  • Triplex: Like the duplex system, except with three springs inside
  • Mixed: A combination of the linear system with either the duplex or triplex system

Does you garage use standard torsion springs? We can help. The Premium Garage Door Service team has experience installing these springs in any kind of setup, and we’ll put them in safely so your garage door again works like new. Contact us now at one of our four phone numbers listed on our Contact page.