Even garages get their day, well, actually 30 of them.

June is Garage Door Safety Month, but that doesn't mean you should relegate one month to the topic.

The idea is to give a month of concentrated attention to fact that the garage door is likely the largest moving object in the home, it's typically used every day and can be potentially lethal, especially to small kids. It always needs attention.

Since January 1993, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has required that all garage door openers have an external entrapment protection system. This typically is some electronic eye or sensor that will trigger the door to brake and reverse itself before it hits anything detected in its path.

It prevents accidental entrapment, injury or death.

Many older garage doors are quaint fixtures providing good architectural form, but their function may allow them to reverse only after a collision -- and that can be quite a hard crash -- or they don't reverse at all. If your garage door is more than 10 years old, consider upgrading, says the CPSC, and replace pre-1982 garage door openers that do not reverse.

The mandate for the improved safety feature in current standards has significantly reduced personal injury and property damage so much so that in 2001 the standard was extended to include automated security gates that are increasingly common at the entrances of multifamily housing communities.

An optional safety feature includes a constant contact control button which requires a person to hold in or onto the control button continuously for the garage door to close completely. If the button is released before the door closes, the door reverses and opens to the highest position. The remote control transmitter will not close the door with this option. However, the hands-on option allows -- or forces the operator to see -- that the door is closed with no one in danger of collision or entrapment and that no one unwanted has ventured inside.

The mandate also calls for manufacturers to include a sticker warning consumers of the potential entrapment hazard. The sticker is to be placed near the wall-mounted control button.

As an added precaution, you should mount the keypad wall control out of children's reach -- at least five feet from the floor -- and in a location where users can clearly see the moving door.

CPSC also says you should also test your garage door each month. Your owner's manual or manufacturer can provide you with the testing procedure specific to your garage door make and model. It will also provide safe operating times, maintenance you can perform, emergency procedures and other safety tips.

During the monthly testing you should also visually inspect the garage door, its springs, cables, rollers and pulleys for signs of wear. Do not attempt to remove, adjust or repair these parts or anything attached to them, because the parts are under high tension. A trained door repairman should make adjustments or repairs.

Other safety tips from CPSC the International Door Association (IDA) and the Door & Access Systems Manufacturers Association (DASMA) include:

• Keep kids well clear of garage doors. Don't let them beat or bang on the door or operate it with the control panel or remote control. Teach kids to not to place their fingers between the door sections or consider a door that doesn't pinch.

• Never leave the garage partially open. When activated again, it may travel downward and come in contact with an object in its path. This is also a home-invasion security risk. To prevent security risks, don't leave the garage door unopened when the garage is unattended.

• Never leave the remote control in the car or with a parking attendant. If its stolen, the thief has easy access to your home. Consider using a key chain remote programmed to your vehicle.

• Unplug the garage door opener and use an optional system that renders the remote unusable for periods when you are away.

• If your opener does not have rolling-code technology, which changes the access codes each time the opener is used to prevent code grabbing, consider investing in a new system that does or remember to regularly change the manufacturer's standard access codes on the opener and remote control.

Published: June 19, 2008

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Broderick Perkins parlayed a career in old-school journalism into a contemporary digital news service that really hits home. The award-winning consumer journalist, originally from Wilmington, DE, is founder, publisher and executive editor of the bootstrap DeadlineNews Group, a Silicon Valley-based editorial content and consulting service specializing in residential real estate, consumer news and related editorial consulting services. The DeadlineNews Group includes the website, DeadlineNews.com, offering real estate editorial content and consulting services, and its back shop, the Deadline Newsroom, an open house on news that really hits home. Perkins obtained his formal journalism education from University of Delaware and a journalism boot camp, the Institute of Journalism Education at the University of California-Berkeley. He went on to 20 years of service as a daily newspaper journalist at the Wilmington, DE News Journal and San Jose, CA Mercury News. Perkins covered housing on the San Jose Mercury News reporting team which earned a General News Reporting Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. He has also produced real estate, consumer and small business content for the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, RealtyTimes.com, Nolo.com, Better Homes and Gardens, the National Association of Realtors, Homestore/Move and Intuit/Quicken among more than three dozen publications. In addition to managing the DeadlineNews Group, Perkins most recently served as chief editorial consultant for Nolo's Essential Guide To Buying Your First Home, Nolo, and writes real estate television scripts for RealtyTimes.com.