garage door
How to Prevent Garage Door Accidents
Garage door accidents, like so many accidents in the home, could be avoided if more care and attention was paid.
A garage is not essentially a play area or a work area, but a place to store your vehicle and household items. You should therefore never let children play around in an open door, especially when we are talking about traditional spring doors, as you are creating a danger zone.
Garage doors should be kept closed. They are not really designed to stay open, and if they were used correctly, then many accidents would be prevented. Although the springs in a traditional garage door are designed to hold a garage door open at half way up, springs can fail at any moment, the garage door falling abruptly down.
Keeping up to date with your garage maintenance is really important if you wish to prevent door accidents. A simple once over, periodically to make sure that none of the moving parts or hardware of the door are broken is all it takes to prevent so many accidents. If you do the simple test of leaving your door half way up, you should be able to determine if the torsion springs are in good order [more]
How Not To Repair a Garage Door
It’s a fact: I don’t like to pay someone else to do something that I can dobetter. Well, at least that’s the theory. The reality is that I’m cheap, and I hate to let my money go on long trips without me. So, I often repair things that I should never mess with, just to save a few bucks. A classic example of my penny-pinching foolishness dates from about 1986, when I tried to repair my own garage door.
I didn’t have a fancy automatic garage door back then. I just had a manual unit: drive up, get out, lift the door, get back in, drive in, get out, close the door. Everything was fine with my little garage door, but I felt that it could be a tad easier to lift. So, I decided to adjust the spring tensioning mechanism myself. Who needs a professional, right? Mull on that last line for a few minutes…
Garage doors are heavy, and without the springs, all you’ve got is dead weight — too heavy to lift. To adjust the door, I had to tinker with the spring coiling components — it’s the coiling process that makes the door easier to maneuver. When I [more]
Artist Takes On ‘Unattractive’ Graffiti
Gallery owner Bob Daniels figured if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.
After cleaning up graffiti and battling taggers for years, he’s showing the city that there’s more to graffiti than vandalism.
Local artist Bryce Huffman is painting a mural on the garage door of Earls Court Gallery, in a back alley off Ottawa Street North, to cover unsightly “hip-hop” tags. “I always thought that alley strip that Rick Mercer passes during his rants was so cool. Some of that (art) is amazing,” Daniels said. But in this back alley, taggers have spoiled walls and doors, fences and cars. “I think what annoys me is that it’s totally unattractive, total disregard. Why does this jerk think I want to look at that?” Daniels asks, pointing to a pair of “tags” on a neighboring wall.
To help clean up, Hamilton introduced a commercial property improvement grant (CPIG) in 2001 to help small businesses improve their spaces. Business owners in any of the city’s 13 business improvement areas can apply once a year for 50/50 funding for improvements to their facades — including murals.
Legally, the onus is on property owners to remove graffiti. There are volunteer groups that help with removal, but professional chemical [more]
You Should Consider Maintenance Costs When Buying Your Next Garage Door
Many different things have to be considered when you have to buy garage doors.
You will have to consider the material used in garage entry door, you will have to consider the design and reliability of a particular design and finally you will have to consider the maintenance cost that can be applied to different types of garage gates. There are different types in these doors and each and every type has got a different maintenance criteria and price as well. If you will consider the maintenance charges of different types of doors then you will be in a better position to buy a best garage door.
The reason why you should consider the maintenance cost is that it can affect directly on the cost of your garage door. You will find different price labels and definitely you will try to go for those garage entry doors that come under your budget. However if you buy a garage door that is under your budget and in next 5 years you spend more than the original cost of the door on its maintenance then what do you think, did you made a right choice? Obviously not! At the same time if you [more]
Don’t Forget About Garage Security
When you think about home security you may not think about garage security because you don’t actually live it in.
But a garage is often one of the best ways for the bad guy to break into your home, especially if it’s an attached garage.
Criminals scope out the exterior and seek the path of least resistance. If the garage has an entrance door and a garage door they will determine which is easiest to compromise.
An entrance door that has small windows is easily compromised when a little window near a door lock is smashed and the burglar reaches their hand through and opens the door.
Once they are in the garage they have access to the interior door which is often unlocked. I’ve seen footage of burglars breaking into a garage and using the homeowners own chainsaw to cut through a door or wall to gain access to the home. This method won’t trigger any interior door alarm sensors because the door is never opened.
Garage doors are easy to break into with a coat hanger as demonstrated in this video on YouTube. Another way would simply be to drill a hole thru the door and slide a coat hanger in pulling down [more]
Make your garage much more than just a place to park your car!
Would you like more liveable space in your home? The simple expedient of insulating and draft proofing your garage door will give you just that. Make your garage much more than just a place to park your car!
A garage really is much more than a car park or at least, an insulated garage has the potential to be much more, especially when one takes into account their proximity to our homes. You wouldn’t let uncomfortable draughts into your home, so why let them into your garage?
Agreed, there is a negative to consider when deciding whether or not to insulate your garage doors. Insulated garage doors cost more to purchase than uninsulated garage doors, but this initial outlay is mitigated over time through the reduction of lost heat and the addition of extra liveable space within your home.
Home Improvement The benefits of having a garage that is insulated including an insulated garage door. We use our garages for everything except maybe parking our cars that is. Garages are great to have because we can get so much use out of them. They give us an extension of our home to work on hobbies like wood working or automotive care or even [more]
A Resource for Homeowners: Home and Garage Access During a Power Outage
LiftMaster launched their new site, GetInYourGarage.com, as a resource for homeowners, providing them with tips on how to manage their home and garage access during a power outage.
Coupled with statistics on the frequency of power outages across the country, this site helps connect homeowners to installing dealers who can educate them on and install tangible battery backup garage door opener and access solutions so they are never inconveniently blocked or locked out by a heavy powerless garage door when the power’s out.
Whether caused by inclement weather or grid failures, power outages are inevitable, leaving homeowners with a lot to handle until the power goes back on. GetinYourGarage.com offers a resourceful starting point for homeowners and families on what to do during a power outage and what steps they can take to ensure that access to their home is not jeopardized, leading them to a local dealer to learn more about maintaining peace-of-mind during an outage.
The site also features information on the LiftMaster 3850 Belt Drive unit with battery backup built right into the opener, as well as a preview of LiftMaster’s new national television spot that highlights the features and benefits of installing this battery backup-enabled unit.
LiftMaster is a [more]
Best garage door to suit your home’s style
Today’s most popular door type by far is the sectional overhead door, which usually comprises four or five horizontally hinged sections that roll up into the garage ceiling on a curving track.
There’s little doubt that this is the most easily operated garage door design since the Victorian biparting door — a fact that explains its wide use as a replacement for older types.
First, a quick rundown on sizes: Single-bay doors are typically 8 or 9 feet wide by 7 feet high, while double-bay doors are typically 16 feet wide (occasionally 18) by 7 feet high. Double-bay doors are mainly found on broadly proportioned home styles such as California ranchers.
As for choosing a door design to suit your home’s architecture: Although the current fashion in sectional doors is for very showy and elaborate designs with raised or recessed panels, ornate windows and the like, these aren’t necessarily the best choice for your home. Ranch-style houses, for example, typically look best with very simple and unrelieved doors, and anything more ornamental can look overwrought, drawing attention away from the front entrance.
On the other hand, a bland, unadorned garage door will look very strange on a traditional home style. The best approach is to reflect the [more]
WORLD’S MOST UNIQUE GARAGE DOOR
There’s a magical garage door in the Upper Haight of San Francisco!
McMills Construction was working on an investment property on Oak Street, and they were scratching their heads over how to build a garage to enhance the tenant’s use of the building.
It’s nearly impossible to consistently score a decent parking spot in the Upper Haight. The problem, you see, is that the city planning department had recently started enforcing its mandate to limit changes to the character of historic building’s front facades– especially when it came to converting bay windows into garage doors.
Corey McMills, who’s got a background in mechanical engineering, thought of an idea to covert the walls of the bay window into door panels that would fold into the garage space to allow cars to enter. The planning department accepted it. McMills Construction teamed up with Beausoleil Architects to help with the details. The result is brilliant.