An attached garage is a doorway into your home that many people secure less carefully than a window. A few inexpensive changes close most of the gap.
The five common weaknesses
- Old fixed-code remotes — anything pre-1996 may be trivially copied. Rolling code is the fix.
- The emergency release reachable from outside with a hook through the top of the door.
- A remote clipped to the visor of a car parked on the driveway.
- The internal door from garage to house treated as an interior door — it is an exterior door.
- Windows in the garage door or side door left uncovered, advertising what is inside.
The remote on the visor is the one people find hardest to give up and the easiest for somebody else to use.
BH Garage Door USA technicians
Worth doing
Fit a keypad and stop carrying a remote at all. Upgrade a pre-rolling-code opener. Treat the house-to-garage door as an exterior door with a proper deadbolt. Frost or cover garage windows. If you travel, most modern openers have a vacation or lock mode that disables remotes entirely.
Do not disable the release
Removing the emergency release to stop hook attacks is not the answer — you will need it in a power cut. A properly fitted shield addresses the risk without removing the safety feature.
Why this is worth two minutes of your month
A garage door is the heaviest moving object in most homes.
It sounds obvious. It is not. Modern doors have real safety engineering in them — two independent reversing systems, pinch-resistant sections, containment for the Garage Door Springs.
All of it only helps if it is working. And all of it can fail quietly, with no warning at all that it has failed. We say that from experience, not from a brochure.
The two tests, and how to do them properly
The first is the photo-eyes. With the door open, press close and pass something through the beam near the floor. A broom handle is ideal. Never a hand or a foot.
So what does that mean day to day? The door should stop and reverse immediately.
The second is the mechanical reverse. Lay a solid object flat in the opening — a length of timber a couple of inches thick is traditional — and close the door onto it.
It should reverse on contact. If it keeps pushing, or stops without reversing, stop using the Garage Door Opener until it has been adjusted. It is a small thing that turns into a big thing.
What we check on a safety visit
Every visit runs the same way, whatever the original complaint was. It is quicker than it sounds, and it stops us treating a symptom and calling it a fix.
- Photo-eye alignment and the condition of both lenses.
- The mechanical auto-reverse, tested against a solid object on the floor.
- Force settings — too sensitive gives nuisance reversals, too high defeats the point entirely.
- Spring containment on any door still running extension springs.
- The condition and reach of the emergency release.
If something on that list is worn but not urgent, we say so and give you a rough idea how long it has left. That way you can plan instead of react. Most people find this out the expensive way.
The mistake we see most
Taping the sensors to face each other, or unplugging them, to stop a nuisance reversal.
That is the theory. Here is the reality. We understand the temptation. The door keeps reversing, it is maddening, and the sensors look like the problem.
They are not the problem. They are reporting one.
That circuit is what stops a door closing on a child. If it misbehaves, fix the cause rather than removing the protection. You will notice it long before it becomes urgent, if you know to look.
The short version
If you take one thing away from all of that: a door that is balanced, lubricated and has working safety reverses will outlast one that is not. By years, not months.
Almost everything we get called out to was preventable. Most of it was cheap to prevent, too.
So if any of this sounds like your door, get eyes on it while it is still an inconvenience rather than a breakdown. We would rather do the small job.
Why this is worth two minutes of your month
A garage door is the heaviest moving object in most homes.
So what does that mean day to day? Modern doors have real safety engineering in them — two independent reversing systems, pinch-resistant sections, containment for the Garage Door Springs.
All of it only helps if it is working. And all of it can fail quietly, with no warning at all that it has failed. We say that from experience, not from a brochure.
The two tests, and how to do them properly
The first is the photo-eyes. With the door open, press close and pass something through the beam near the floor. A broom handle is ideal. Never a hand or a foot.
Let us be honest about this bit. The door should stop and reverse immediately.
The second is the mechanical reverse. Lay a solid object flat in the opening — a length of timber a couple of inches thick is traditional — and close the door onto it.
It should reverse on contact. If it keeps pushing, or stops without reversing, stop using the Garage Door Opener until it has been adjusted. We say that from experience, not from a brochure.
What we check on a safety visit
Every visit runs the same way, whatever the original complaint was. It is quicker than it sounds, and it stops us treating a symptom and calling it a fix.
- Photo-eye alignment and the condition of both lenses.
- The mechanical auto-reverse, tested against a solid object on the floor.
- Force settings — too sensitive gives nuisance reversals, too high defeats the point entirely.
- Spring containment on any door still running extension springs.
- The condition and reach of the emergency release.
If something on that list is worn but not urgent, we say so and give you a rough idea how long it has left. That way you can plan instead of react. It is a small thing that turns into a big thing.
The mistake we see most
Taping the sensors to face each other, or unplugging them, to stop a nuisance reversal.
One more thing, because it matters. We understand the temptation. The door keeps reversing, it is maddening, and the sensors look like the problem.
They are not the problem. They are reporting one.
That circuit is what stops a door closing on a child. If it misbehaves, fix the cause rather than removing the protection. Nobody enjoys hearing it, but it saves money.
The short version
If you take one thing away from all of that: a door that is balanced, lubricated and has working safety reverses will outlast one that is not. By years, not months.
Almost everything we get called out to was preventable. Most of it was cheap to prevent, too.
So if any of this sounds like your door, get eyes on it while it is still an inconvenience rather than a breakdown. We would rather do the small job.
We cover 54 Florida cities, usually same day.
