A Malfunctioning Garage Door Can Cause Serious Injury

Most every home these days is equipped with an automatic garage door opener. While an automatic garage door represents a great convenience, it also can present a hazard if a component malfunctions. Specifically, a garage door is nothing less than a machine consisting of a springs, cables, rollers and pulleys. If any of these components fail the door may not operate as expected. For example, the torsion spring components are under high tension, and larger doors are typically equipped with two such springs to counter balance the weight of the door. When properly adjusted these springs make the door seem almost weightless to open and close. But, if one of these springs breaks, the motor that powers the door up and down when the button is pushed may be overstressed and stop functioning with the door either in the open position, closed position, or somewhere in between. All automatic doors have release levers so that the door can be manually opened during a power failure. — If a user is unaware that a spring has broken, however, and pulls the release lever when the automatic door has stopped in an open position, the door may suddenly come down with great force and cause serious injury. Having a professional periodically inspect a door and all the mechanical components, including the springs, is important and an important way that a user can be assured that the door will function properly and safely. – This blog post, like many of our posts, is prompted by circumstance of a real injury case dealt with by our office.