Is your garage door opener safe? The Door & Access Systems Manufacturers Association (DASMA) has a great technical data sheet giving instructions on how to conduct a comprehensive 10-point inspection of your overhead garage door and garage door opener, which can be downloaded here: Garage Door Safety Checklist. When inspecting garage doors and garage door openers, I use a modified version of that checklist. Rather than re-write this 10-point checklist, I'm going to go over the most common garage door opener issues that come up during home inspections. The photoelectric eyes for garage door openers need to be installed within 6" of the ground. If they're installed higher than this, there's an increased potential for a small animal or possibly a child to end up below the pathway of the photoelectric sensors. Not only that, but when these sensors are installed too high in the air, it's impossible to hit the garage door opener button, run out of the garage, and jump over the beam while the door is closing.

What do you think the owners did with the garage shown below? I have to assume they dove under the beam and did a barrel roll while the door closed behind them. While these sensors should never be installed at the ceiling, it does happen. Here's a fun compilation of photos showing these sensors improperly installed, on purpose. Garage door openers that are more than 25 years old typically won't have photoelectric sensors installed. wooden front doors gloucestershireThese garage door openers should still auto-reverse if they hit an object that obstructs their path while closing, but the only way to know if that feature is functional is to do a live test. cheap windshield repair phoenix azThe industry standard test is to let the garage door opener close on a flat 2x4. fire safety doors capital allowances

If the opener auto-reverses when it hits the 2x4, it passes the test. If it doesn't, it fails the test and should be adjusted or replaced for safety. I've performed this test hundreds of times without incident, but I've heard numerous stories from other home inspectors who ended up breaking the garage door opener while doing this test. Just about a month ago, that happened to one of the inspectors in my company. After that incident, we had a company meeting about this and agreed to stop performing this test on these old, frail garage door openers. doors for sale droghedaWhen a garage door opener is so old that it's not equipped with photoelectric sensors, we simply recommend replacement of the opener.oak internal doors dublin This test is actually supposed to be conducted on all garage door openers every month by homeowners, so we've started including this advice in all of our home inspection reports.sliding glass door chest freezer

While a garage door opener plugged into an extension cord isn't the worst thing that could happen, it's unquestionably a defect. Extension cords are only supposed to be for temporary use, and every garage door opener manufacturer (that I'm aware of) prohibits this. An extension cord is simply one more place for something to potentially go wrong. The straightforward fix for this condition is to have an outlet installed. The wall button for the garage door opener should be installed at least 5' above standing surfaces to help prevent little kids from reaching the button. garage door opener linear reviewWhen measuring the distance from the standing surface to the button, logic tells me to think like a kid and measure from where a kid would go to reach the button. That means measuring from the door threshold at the house / garage common door, not the garage floor. While this is never a big deal, I'm a father of two young kids and I appreciate this requirement.

When I find garage door opener buttons mounted too low, I usually recommend moving them. This is typically about a 30-second fix. For any detached garage without a service door, it's a good idea to have an emergency disconnect installed. Without one of these, there is no simple way to get into the garage if the power goes out, the GFCI device trips, or the garage door opener fails. Or the dumba$$ home inspector lost the only remote control (don't ask). I blogged about these many years ago: Garage door opener emergency release. When it comes to home inspections and automatic garage door openers, I'd say this list makes up at least 95% of the stuff that we report on. When the time comes to replace your garage door opener, check out the latest and greatest to see if you'd like something a bit fancier; Ryobi recently came out with a modular garage door opener, which you can read more about on the Family Handyman website. Author: Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections

Subscribe to Reuben’s Home Inspection BlogConstruction How-To, Framing A rotten sill plate is a common occurrence in old houses—and a big problem. The sill is the piece of wood closest to the ground, either on a foundation or piers, and is usually a “timber-sized” board: 3×6, 3×8, 4×6, 4×8, and so on. The studs often rest directly on the sill and are toe-nailed in with no bottom plate as you’d find in a modern house. Often installed too close to the ground or otherwise exposed to water or insect infestation, sills can—and do—literally rot out from under the building.The good news is that many of them can be replaced using common tools, common materials, and common sense. The bad news is that every sill replacement is loaded with individual factors so this article is more about explaining our approach rather than specific steps that’ll cover every job.That said, one constant is gravity so we know we’ll encounter the same general things on most projects.Signs the Sill Is RottenUnless you can see it from your basement or crawlspace, a rotten sill is a hidden problem you might not notice until you’re doing something else.

In this case, we were demo-ing the existing plaster while upgrading a mudroom and saw the problem.On the other hand, there may already be telltale signs: the exterior siding is buckling or cracking, the floor inside is spongy to walk on or the room has a noticeable dip. Once you see that the sill is better suited for mulching your petunias than supporting a roof, you might ask, “What’s holding the building up?”The answer is: the membrane created by sheathing and siding—and “habit,” as some carpenters say. It won’t last forever, but it’s what’s doing the job now.Technique aside, the first step to repairing a rotten sill is to determine if this is the right job for you. If, for example, the sill sits directly under two stories of house, you’re talking about managing a lot of weight. Time, preparation and installation process—not to mention permits and inspections—are critical.If phrases like “continuous load path,” “point-load” and “header” aren’t a central part of your lexicon, we’d recommend subbing this one out.

And if you do, this article contains lots of information you’ll need to make sure your contractor knows what he’s doing.On the other hand, while the steps are the same, there is a lot less at stake if you’re talking about a small, single-story structure like the one we repaired here. We still needed to manage the weight of the roof and walls—and used similar principles as if we were managing the weight of an entire building—but there wasn’t an entire building held up on temporary framing over our heads.The thing about removing a sill plate is that you have to support all the weight above it while you remove and replace it. That means you must design a temporary framing system that carries the entire load rather than portions of it.For example, it may seem expeditious to jam a 6×6 under a single rafter or joist. However, that’s only carrying a “point load,” which is the member above it and little else. In other words, you have to send the weight of all the overhead framing into the ground, thus suspending the wall.

Generally, the most effective way we’ve found to do this—especially the heavier the weight—is to build a temporary stud wall. The way we do it is to screw a top plate to the bottom of the rafters. Next, fasten a stud plumb under each rafter. But you can’t cut studs willy-nilly. They have to fit extra tight. If you have to pound a stud into place with a 2-pound sledge (we’re assuming a concrete basement floor here, rather than a finished interior floor, dirt floor or grass), that’s the kind of tight we’re talking about.Alternatively, you can build a similar structure outside, which is what we did. We screwed a top plate across the length of the eave, then dropped double 2×6 studs every 24 inches to the ground below (a concrete apron). We tied the studs together with diagonal bracing. Were there not a concrete apron, we would have laid 2×12 on the ground as a pad.The load from the top plate is transferred across the plate and down the studs into the ground. The other reason for fitting the studs and plates super-snug is that you want to keep the framing above from moving as the existing framing is removed.