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Ron Porter's Buyer's Advocate Articles
Helping Home Buyers understand...
Garage Door Springs Safety Alert
Tilt-up garage doors with counter-balance spring
assemblies built before 1976 can be a safety hazard if the springs break.
Without any safety device, pieces of the spring may fly across the garage
and damage cars, washers & dryers, and may injure someone who happens
to be in the garage at the time. Because of metal fatigue these springs
may break without warning. That happened to someone I know once while she
was getting groceries out of her car in the garage. The spring bounced
off the car, just missed her head and embedded itself into the sheet rock
wall.
I recommend you have a contractor replace old
springs with the newer style springs which have a factory installed safety
device. If you buy a home with old style springs which you do not wish
to replace right away, there is an inexpensive way that some homeowners
have used to install a home-made safety device using a piece of 3/16" poly
rope. Here is how one person did it: With the garage door closed, measure
the length of the spring. Double that number and add twenty four inches
for the length of rope needed (spring length in inches x 2 + 24 inches
= rope length for each spring assembly). 1. With the door closed, thread
one end of the rope down through the center of the spring. 2. At the bottom
of the spring, leave a loop about four inches long, after threading the
rope back up through the second spring. Leave a two inch loop at the top
of the springs and lock the two ends of the rope together with a "U" bolt
clamp, or tie the rope into a tight knot. If your door is equipped with
only one spring per side, simply wrap the rope back to the top of the spring
and clamp the ends together, leaving six inches of slack.
Ron Porter, Exclusive Buyer Agent
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