Six Top Tips for Childproofing Your Garage Door

In our last post, we talked about garage door obstructions and how to free up your stuck door. Similarly, we wanted to touch on a topic that is also important for your family’s safety, and that is how to make sure your garage door is childproof. It may sound like a no brainer to just keep children away from your garage at all times, but this isn’t always possible for the little ones who are curious about their environment and love to explore. And sometimes in Austin, we love to open up the garage door and see our neighbors as we hang out in our front yards.

Here are some quick and easy tips to help you keep them safe and sound!

Up & Up Garage Doors

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    Up, Up and Away!

    One important thing you can do to help keep your kids from playing in or near your garage door is to keep your garage door remote hidden up and away from their reach. Many people leave their remotes attached to their car’s sunshade, but this can present a safety hazard both for you and your small children if the remote is left inside your car unlocked. The best thing to do with your remote (when not in use) is to take it inside your home with your keys. This not only prevents potential theft, but also keeps children away from being able to access your garage door.

    Checks and Balances

    Keeping up with your garage door’s maintenance checks on a regular basis is important to help extend the life of your door and ensures that everything is in working order. A maintenance check every six months is a good measure to stick with, but it’s perfectly fine to increase basic door checks to once every few months to make sure your door is safe for the whole family. Your trusted garage door repair company can help with this!

    Put It In Reverse

    Safety standards for installed garage doors have increased over the years due to accidents and deaths caused by faulty garage door mechanisms. Since 1993, all garage doors are required to have an automatic reverse function installed. This helps keep accidents from occurring due to an object (or a person) getting stuck underneath an extremely heavy door and being unable to break free. Garage doors can be very dangerous since they can weigh in the hundreds of pounds and should be repaired and maintained by a trained professional.

    The Eyes Have It

    Another important feature of modern garage doors is the addition of photo-eye sensors. This smart and important feature was introduced as a way to keep nearby objects safe within your garage. If anything comes too close and obstructs the path of the photo eyes (small red sensor beams of light located about six inches above the ground on either side of the door), the garage door will cease additional movement to prevent accidental injury or damage to something like a person, pet, or vehicle in the beam’s path.

    Catch and Release

    All modern garage doors should come standard with an emergency release, which is usually a short red cord that can be found overhead and is attached to your garage door. It’s important to know how to use this essential safety feature and a good idea to make sure that your family also knows about its functionality.

    Location, Location, Location

    If your garage door opener wall panel is low enough to the ground for children to reach, it might be a good idea to place a cover over the top or have the panel moved to a higher location on the wall so that it isn’t accessible to little ones. Having a lock button can also help in these instances, but if accessibility is still an issue, your garage door repair company can move the panel to another place.

    There are potential safety-related concerns to owning a home, but your garage door doesn’t have to be one of them. Safeguarding your children against injury can be simple if you take the proper measures to protect them. If you ever have questions related to securing your garage door, we’re always just a phone call away!

    About The Up & Up Garage Doors

    The Up & Up Garage Doors is a family-owned company in Austin, Texas. We are fully committed to providing the best customer care possible, offering more than a decade of experience in garage door repair and installation. Our company is also fully-licensed, insured, and bonded with an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau and many positive testimonials from past customers. We offer 24-hour emergency service, so we are always available, whenever you need us.