Blog Archive: February 2011
A Frozen Garage Door Can Be Hard to Open!
Your garage door might be opened several times a day. When you move your car in and out of the garage or when you enter a garage that is not attached to your home to retrieve or store something, you will need to be opening the door. However, if you have a severe snow or ice storm or even just a particularly cold string of days, your garage door can freeze closed. Luckily, there are things you can do to prevent your garage door from freezing
1. Apply a commercial garage door lubricant or silicone spray to the tracks of your garage door. The lubricant will prevent freezing.
2. Add some lubricant to the rollers of your garage door, as well.
3. Put the commercial lubricant onto the hinges of your garage door to prevent them from freezing during the winter.
4. Shovel snow and ice from the outside of your garage door each morning. Allowing the snow and ice to accumulate or refreeze at night can also freeze your garage door.
5. Warm up your car in your driveway, rather than inside your garage. Your car heating up can melt the snow or ice around the door. Then, when it refreezes after you drive away, the [more]
No Power to the Garage Door?
The needs of homeowners and the designs of garages today have evolved to include many distinct needs and applications that demand that garage door openers are diverse in their design and application.
Garage Door Openers are considered a necessity by most homeowners today and often rely on the garage door as the main entrance to the home.
You don’t want to get out of the car in driving rain, blizzards or freezing cold – just press the button on your remote transmitter and your garage door opens automatically. The new generation of garage door openers are reasonably priced, safe and easy to install. They are affordable and no longer a convenience for only a select few.
So what happens when you lose power in your home? Operating your door manually is no fun, especially in areas with frequent power outages. If you’re fortunate enough, you opener will have a battery backup system that will continue to operate your garage door.
For example, the LiftMaster 3850 opener features an ultra-quiet 12V DC motor with a belt drive system and the industry’s only integrated EverCharge™ Battery Backup system. The integrated battery backup technology not only powers the opener for up to 40 full cycles but continues to [more]
Pass the salt, please!
This is a winter during which temperatures are averaging below normal for about three-quarters of the nation. So don’t let winter’s freeze to be the cause of your garage door seal freezing to the concrete floor.
Whether it’s wind piling snow up against the door to your garage or a dripping eave that is splashing around the front of the garage and then freezing overnight, chances are you’ve encountered a garage door that’s frozen itself to the concrete floor.
The simplest remedy is to use ordinary table salt. Sprinkling a generous amount along where the rubber seal meets up with the concrete will minimize the chance of it freezing by keeping the salt in place. You just might want to keep a large container of table salt near the garage door, so it will be handy and you’ll remember to use it. Keep the area beneath the garage door seal swept clear of snow and reapply salt as necessary.
It sounds like a hassle, but chipping ice away from the bottom of the garage door and chewing up the rubber seal in the process is no fun, and parking outside the garage defeats the purpose of having a garage in the first place.
Use this [more]
Prevent Carbon Monoxide Poisoning
Every year hundreds of people die from accidental exposure to carbon monoxide poisoning. In fact, carbon monoxide from motor-vehicle exhausts is the main cause of poisoning deaths in the United States.
Eighty-three percent of these types of poisoning deaths were in stationary vehicles, with most deaths occurring in garages. Even though garage doors or windows are open, passive ventilation may not be adequate to reduce risk in semi-closed areas.
Carbon monoxide is an odorless, colorless, tasteless and toxic gas that replaces the oxygen in our blood, causing the body to suffocate from the inside. Most people have no idea they are exposed to a high level of carbon monoxide until it’s too late. Symptoms of mild acute poisoning include headaches, vertigo and flu-like effects. Larger exposures can lead to significant toxicity of the central nervous system, heart and death. More tragic is that many people surviving high exposure to carbon monoxide are left with devastating after-effects such as learning disabilities, memory and skills loss, and coronary and respiratory problems.
Drivers can prevent carbon monoxide poisoning with the following precautions:
-Regularly check the exhaust and emission systems in your vehicle.
-Check the floor pan for holes or leaks that could allow exhaust gases to seep into [more]