Installing a properly functioning garage door is arguably one of the most important investments you can make for your home. Through the garage door, you access the vital space where you store most of your worthy items. If you drive your car daily, it is the feature you will interact with most in your home.
Despite the crucial role a garage door plays in a home, there is a risk of accidents and injuries associated with it if it gets faulty. A malfunctioning garage door is a safety hazard to the people and objects that move through it. A defective garage door has the potential to cause irreversible injuries, a reason why you need to be a lot more careful when handling it.
This article will discuss the three most common garage door injuries and the ways to avoid them. Read till the end to learn how you can keep your garage door working correctly and safely. Below are the three main categories of garage door injuries and ways to avoid them.
Garage door lowering onto someone
This is the worst injury a garage door can cause to someone on its closing pathway. A garage door structure carries a good amount of weight, and if this is pounded on you, it may cause serious, irreversible injuries. It is even worse if the door lowers onto a kid. Please note that even if safety sensors are installed to prevent this from happening, it is not always a guarantee that they are functioning correctly.
Preventive measures:
- Train your children about the hazards and always keep an eye on them to ensure that they are not playing near your garage door.
- Avoid ducking under the door when it is in motion. You never know; the system may fail when you are beneath the door, and it may lower on you, causing severe injuries.
- Ensure that the safety sensors are working correctly at all times. The LED of the safety sensors glows green when they are functioning properly.
Garage door finger injuries
As the garage door opens or closes, your fingers may get trapped in the tracks or other open sections and get pinched or seriously injured. This form of injury is common to children, but adults who are not careful are not spared.
Preventive measures:
Observe the above preventive measures in addition to the following:
- Be careful with your hands and other body parts at risk of getting caught in sections of the garage door when operating it.
- Even better, avoid staying near or in the way of a garage door when it is in use.
Injuries resulting from attempting to repair the garage components unskilled and unequipped
If you tackle any garage repair installation task that you are not aware of its whereabouts, you are definitely at risk of getting severe or minor injuries. It is even more risky to work on your garage door without the necessary tools and safety equipment.
Preventive measures:
- Shun from any garage door repair and replacement work that you are not skilled and equipped to do.
It is better to spend money on a garage professional than risk getting irreversible injuries or, even worse, life-threatening ones.
Additional garage door safety tips
Follow these safety tips to avoid the above injuries and any other that a garage door has the potential to cause:
- Inspect the springs on your garage door regularly- No matter the kind of springs you are using, even the high-quality steel ones, they will still wear and break after some time due to the high tension imposed on them. Frequent DIY inspection will help you identify these problems, especially if your garage door has been installed for a long time.
- Ensure that the tamper resistance hardware is working correctly- Most modern garage doors come with tamper-resistant hardware that prevents the door’s brackets’ loosening by an untrained professional. This helps reduce injuries from the garage door components.
- Replace your garage door opener if it has clocked the expected lifespan- The garage door is the heart of your garage door’s opening and closing process and should be replaced when the recommended operating time is due. Most garage door openers will have an average lifespan of 10-15 years, but some can hit the 20 years mark if you have an excellent variety.
- Frequent maintenance- Don’t only call a specialist when your garage door stops working completely. Arrange for scheduled inspections and maintenance as this will enable the identification and reversal of minor defects before they become a serious safety hazard.
These tips should keep most garage door injuries at bay, but still, if accidental injuries occur, you should seek medical attention immediately. Don’t overlook minor injuries as they may sprout to other complicated health conditions.
Conclusion
Hopefully, you are now aware of the three main categories of garage door injuries and understand that the only way to prevent them is to ensure that all the garage door components are working correctly. With frequent inspection, you will identify faults on your garage door early and repair or replace the defective parts before they lead to injuries. Keep your family safe around garage doors at all times by following the easy safety tips discussed above. Any repair or replacement work that you don’t trust your skills with should be left to garage door professionals.