Your garage door weighs 300-500 lbs. Here are the safety basics every family needs to know — especially if you have kids or pets.
A garage door is the heaviest thing that moves in your house. Here are some important safety habits that don't take much effort.
Your garage door probably weighs somewhere between 300 and 500 pounds. That's not something you want closing on a kid, a pet, or anyone else. The good news is that modern doors have solid safety features — but they only work if they're maintained and tested.
Test your safety sensors once a month. Put a cardboard box in the door's path and hit the close button. The door should reverse the second the box breaks the sensor beam or makes contact. If it doesn't, something's wrong and you should get it looked at right away.
Keep the remote away from kids. Seriously — treat it like car keys. And if you have a wall-mounted button, make sure it's at least five feet off the ground. Little kids shouldn't be able to reach it. We know it seems obvious, but we've seen the results of "the kids were playing with the opener" and it's not great.