Garage Door Opener and Safety

How a garage door opener works is largely dictated by the smooth functioning of all its parts. A garage door opener is composed of several parts: the remote control, receivers, circuit boards, sensors, and other parts that make up the system. Borne out of the need to observe safety measures, garage door openers are now usually equipped with timed reverse feature, automatic courtesy lights, an emergency release cord and force adjustment option.

With the popularity of using automated garage doors comes the inevitable issue of safety. Some years back there were fair number of reports of death and other injuries to children involving automated garage door openers. It raised the issue on the safety of using this type of openers, and prompted calls for safety standards in the industry. Some countries, like the U.S., required the inclusion of safety features such as garage door sensors that stop the door from closing and reverses when it hits on anything. This is also known as a Contact Safety Reverse feature.

Another type of sensors used are those sensors that are invisible to the eye such as a no-contact beam system that can pick up approaching movement and makes the door roll or lift back up to open position. This type of sensors is called a Non-Contact Safety Reverse feature.

As technology improved, more safety measures have been added up to standard garage door openers such as a timed-reverse feature, automatic courtesy lights, manual emergency release handles and door force adjustment feature.

Almost all garage door openers available in the market today are automated, hence, you need to get a garage door that can be opened manually to avoid being locked in or out of the garage in case of power loss.