Ours got a real life test today. My wife and I are watching our friends two kids in addition to our own two and we were going out for pizza and play. Getting four kids into the van is not something we’re used to doing and it got a little, well, fractured.
Somehow, the garage door that was open (I swear!) was now about 80 percent closed. So, my wife tries to herd the kids away from the door and I’m going to press the button, and about a milliesecond after I do, my wife is screaming for our daughter who had decided to dart outside.
And the door is closing. :eek:
Well, the door caught her on her head, started back up and the light started flashing. Just like it’s supposed to! I’m not sure if it stopped because it hit her head or if she tripped the little electric eye thingy, but either way it worked as advertised. My wife was quite frazzled, but I didn’t see it first hand and my daughter thought it was exciting, so I’m like “Hey, the door works!”.
So, thanks Sears Craftsman garage door opener designer folks!
(And, yes, I too am wondering what Scylla could do with this story.)
Do you have safety cables on your door springs? I had to have my door fixed because one of the springs broke. Large pieces of it ricocheted all over the place. The repairman not only replaced both springs, he threaded steel cables through them, anchored to the frame, to reduce the chance of anyone getting hurt who happened to be around if a spring broke again.
My dog made a run for the closing door once, and it went up the moment he crossed the laser line - never got near him. It’s really, really reassuring to know that it really does work (not that you’d want to rely on it exclusively, of course, but still.)
To be really sure the door really works, stand so that you are not tripping the light beam at the bottom and try to “catch” the closing door in your outstretched hands. The door is supposed to retract if it encounters a resistant pressure, regardless of whether the light beam gets tripped. Our installers did not set the tension switch correctly and my daughter dropped the door on a garden cart that straddled the light beam, crumpling the door before I could hit the switch.
For nearly all problems with humans, they will fall or run across the light beam, so safety is rarely a problem. However, rarely is not the same as never and a crumpled door is a real aggravation in winter.
(After some initial stalling by the (third party) installation crew, when I got hold of Sears they sent someone out to replace the door and fix the setting.)
I recently noticed a sticker on the side of my unit (no, the garage door unit) that said to test it by laying a 2x4 board where it lands. It’s supposed to stop and turn around.
It didn’t.
Still looking for the users’ manual…
My brother and sister and I had a great game when we were little. See, our sister lived in an apartment down in New Orleans. The parking was underneath the building with a metal gate blocking the garage. So, of course, the best game in the world was to try to shut the gate on your siblings. (it moved very very slowly, but still we were very strange children) The game ended when my sister broke the gate as it was coming down on her head.
-Lil
I installed the opener and spent some time testing the sensors witha 2X4, so I’m pretty confident that the settings are correct. I don’t know for sure if it was the light beam or the resistance of her head that tripped the door, but either way it’s still reassuring.
The house we’re in got upgraded ten years ago, and it has two different garages.
The newer garage has the safety door. It only actually closes about one out of three times you try to shut it. Sometimes a stray dust mote will cross the beam and it will go back up. Sometimes the wind will set off the pressure sensor.
Most often though, the door picks up a bit of hair, or straw, or a cobweb. When it attempts to close the cobweb or what have you trips the beam.
The other garage door is 1950s and is like a hollywood moving door. It will crush anything in its path. You could use it to split logs.
Now that you remind me, I oughtta replace that thing.
Almost all operators have travel and pressure sensors. The way to get it right is to adjust the travel first such that the door stops without trying to head into the driveway apron. Then set the pressure using a scrap of 2x4. That said, if the tracks are installed improperly, wheels have bad bearings, or spring tension is improperly set, doors will do lots of funky things.
…yeah… like a steel 2 car garage door literally falling off the tracks on wee lizardling’s head as wee lizardling tried to open it so we could get the station wagon out.
I think my mother got fifty grey hairs that day. I was more “What’s the fuss? I’m not hurt!”
