Good Practices to Keep Kids Safe Around a New Garage Door

Keeping in mind the benefits of a new garage door, it's also important to respect the safety and maintenance recommendations your door will require. If you have young kids, you don't want them to treat the door like a toy. Here are some good practices to keep in mind.

Sometimes it is necessary for kids to use the garage, especially if they get home from school before you. Instead of giving them a garage door opener, you could give them a door key for the front door or for a door connected to the garage.

An external garage keypad is also a good option because your child can open the garage door from the outside and then safely close the garage on the keypad once he or she is inside. Make sure your child knows that this code is private and shouldn't be shared with anyone outside of the family.

U.S. Federal Law UL 325 has required garage door sensors since 1993. If something breaks the laser connection between the two sensors, the garage door will stop closing or even reverse. This legal requirement has been greatly beneficial for improved safety.

However, some kids try to make a game of beating the garage door as it closes by leaping over the door sensors. It's important to tell your children why this is dangerous such as,  they could accidentally trip and fall, or they could accidentally get caught underneath the door if the sensors are faulty. While modern garage doors have auto-reverse features, you shouldn't tempt these safety features should something go wrong.

Even if your kids aren't playing around with the sensors, they may leave toys or a bike near an open garage. It's important to remind them to put their belongings all the way inside the garage when they are done.

Besides going over safety rules with the kids, regularly inspect these sensors when you leave the house. Sometimes the door sensors can become misaligned, and so the auto-reverse feature of the garage may be faulty. Every door is different, but your sensor LEDs may flash or turn off completely if something isn't right. If something seems amiss, contact a garage repair service.

You should lead by example. After all, if you don't follow the rules, why should your kids? For example, when you teach your kids to stand away from the door when it's either opening or closing, you should do the same.

While there are many DIY projects that are great for homeowners, garage door repairs shouldn't be one of them. Ironically, repairs meant to keep your kids safe could potentially put them at risk.

Why are these DIY repairs dangerous? Garage doors have torsion springs that under a lot of pressure and tightly wound. If you try to remove these yourself or repair them, it could send broken metal pieces everywhere. Furthermore, improper repairs can cause the door track to become misaligned. Since garage doors can be incredibly heavy, you don't want these heavy panels to accidentally collapse due to faulty repairs.

These are just a few good safety practices to keep in mind. Contact Edgemont Garage Doors for more information on garage safety, installation, or repairs.