While these types of homes are certainly appealing to those who prefer more by way of ease and less in the way of inconvenience there remains one thing missing for the more assured security and safety your vehicle, a great deterrent, the personal home garage door.

Some of these dwellings and buildings do come with a parking garage but more often than not the property owner or tenant is assigned anywhere from one to two parking spaces outdoors.

While many arguments could be made that the indoor parking garage is a safer alternative to a personal garage with some containing security cameras and gates, possibly discouraging large numbers of criminal activity, different discussions could conclude that outdoor assigned spaces are better with easier visibility of the vehicle, more pedestrian traffic to deter theft and identification of those conducting illegal acts, however neither of these options can truly stop the ever increasing amount of car and truck break-ins and theft as effectively as the home personal garage door. What’s not so great in case of outdoor parking spaces, is that you can kiss those cool garage storage systems good bye. You’ll have to store all that necessary stuff inside your apartment or house, which can be a bit too much taking into consideration that living spaces in cities are quite small.

In a time where home requirements and preference are of an individual choice more than a necessity the issue of a break in occurring must always come to mind as a possibility that is as real as a vehicle lock out, the breaking or losing of keys (standard or keyless, transponder, V.A.T.) which in some cases are in need of reinventing or manufacturing, and the changing or fixing the locks or ignition of a vehicle on the premises.

In a condo community, apartment building or any of the numerous multi-unit residences that exist, or are being built, an intelligent and sensible suggestion would be that residents and building and maintenance staff would be extremely wise to familiarize themselves with a locksmith and his or her services in their local area for any of these frequent circumstances.

Remember to ask the locksmith as many questions as you might have in order to help educate yourself as much as you can regarding the appropriate measures and steps that can be taken for break-in and theft deterrence, as a locksmith can tell you, a career spent working in this environment also provides much needed insight that those outside of the locksmith industry might not think of.

Theft and criminal activity does happen in these open space parking lots and parking garages that appear secure. Protection of ones vehicle and knowledge of prevention work together!

Thank you for reading! For more info check out my locksmith in Houston website where hopefully you’ll find the solution for all of your Locksmith needs! I look forward to answering any locksmith and security related inquiry you may have. Click here to get to the original The Garage, Cars and Doors article.

I would like to talk about a couple of home improvement products that not only make your life easier but can also add significant value to your home – everyone is a winner.

Today I would like to discuss Garage Doors and what automated garage doors are available on the market.

These really are good – perhaps you have a disability, perhaps you feel vulnerable getting out of your car in the dark winter nights or maybe you are just plain lazy and looking for the easy life!

If any of the above applies to you then an automated garage door could significantly improve your life and add value to your home.

These garage doors come in many different shapes and sizes. You may choose to opt for a roller garage door – this is a slatted door that is quite attractive in appearance. It rolls up into a casing. These doors are generally quite quiet and provide good insulation for your garage.

The negative point about these doors is that you need the headroom above the opening to fit the box in the first place. If you do not have this then the box will have to sit within the opening – this could leave you with a vastly reduced opening height, which is a huge issue for smaller garages or owners of large vehicles.

There are solutions to this issue – doors are available that rather than rolling into a coil they continue on a track on your ceiling roof – this allows to very little headroom requirement. Generally though these doors can be a lot more expensive than the traditional roller door.

Another quite attractive door is the same as mentioned above but the slats remain vertical and the door slides to the left or right wall of the garage. Of course here you need the depth of the garage to be available and if you have a side door or windows it may not be a practical solution

Options are available other than the slatted roller door. Sectional doors are similar but they have much larger panels. These can be very attractive but they come with added complications.

Finally the typical up and over doors are also available with an automatic operation. These tend to be the noisiest of doors so bear this in mind if you have a bedroom above and need to use the door when people may be sleeping. Kits can be purchased that allow you to motorise your existing door. These allow for quick and easy automation at low cost.

All the above operate on the same principle. You have a remote control in your car or on your person. As you approach the door you press the remote. The door should be pretty much open by the time you reach your garage. Dive in and press the button again and the door closes.

A few points to be aware of when considering using a garage door of this kind – What will you do in the even of a powercut – or even a breakdown? There are several options available today including manual override systems and battery backups.

For our take on Garage Doors Check out review Blog. Roller Garage Doors and other home improvement products

If you’ve just got your new garage built, chances are that you had difficult time deciding which was the right garage door opener for your situation. Others may say that an opener is just an opener, and as long as it does its job, which is to open and to shut the garage door, it cannot be wrong. However, going deeper in details, you’ll see how many types of garage door openers are there, thus making your choice difficult.

First of all, there are many brands. My father has a Stanley garage door opener operated by remote, and he is satisfied with it. In my opinion, Stanley or not Stanley, Genie or Liftmaster, or Chamberlain, a garage opener needs to have certain qualities and features as a remote control, a service team ready to install it and to help me with troubleshooting in maintenance and operation, plus an affordable price and an extended guarantee. Is Stanley offering all these? Probably they do, but I think others may do it as well. You definitely need to do some research prior to buying anything.

Garage Door Openers Types

There are three different types of door openers:

1. chain driven opener
2. belt driven
3. screw drive openers

Each of them fits a different purpose, and they are chosen depending on the door’s weight or size. A chain driven garage door opener is appropriate for heavy doors, like the wooden garage doors, which are massive, solid, and usually weigh quite a lot more that other doors made of composite materials or aluminum. So, wooden doors are a match here. Chain drives are driven by a powerful motor, which gives them resistance to bad weather conditions, but which makes them a bit noisy.

Screw drive openers come as the most common option for usual garage doors. They typically work buy having a lifting mechanism that moves along a threaded steel rod. These are quite powerful and come in variety of different horse power motors.

Last but not least, the belt driven model of garage door opener has the great quality of being extremely silent. If your garage is neighboring a bedroom, you may want to choose it for your door. The belts do have a tendency to wear out a little fast then the other types of models. Belt driven openers typically don’t have the power that the others have either.

These are the basics when choosing a garage door opener that will suit the needs of your garage.

For more info, you can check out Tyler Casselman’s site Garage Door Openers Guide

One of the most confusing aspects of homebuilding can be the rough opening for an overhead garage door. It is one of the most frequent questions I am asked.

The rough opening for a garage door, simply put, is the actual size of the door itself. For example, if the garage door is a 7′0″ x 16′0″, then that is the size the rough opening should be framed to. This is also what the opening in the foundation should be. The studs and cripples will then stop right at the edge of the foundation.

The foundation usually drops 8″ to allow the concrete floor to be poured over the top of it. This has to be accounted for when figuring the length of the cripples to get the right height of the overhead door header. Normally the floor is poured 3″ below the top of the foundation wall. If the overhead door is 7′ then 4 and 1/2″ is subtracted from that height. This is the 3″ drop and 1 1/2″ for the bottom
plate. Your total cripple length would be 6′ 7 1/2″.

Once the floor is poured, the door jambs can be installed. The width of these jamb pieces vary with the size of the wall and what the wall is finished with (brick, siding, dryvit, etc). The header piece is installed first, then the two side pieces. These go from the header to the finished concrete floor. Once the jambs are in the door can be installed. With the door installed the door stops are then put on either with or without weatherstripping.

If you know the door size of your overhead door, you know the rough opening. From there its determining where to start and stop your framing.

(c) Mike Merisko www.sawkerfs.com

Last Thursday afternoon I was working on a garage door and regrettably loosened the torsion spring too much. This spring is what relieves or neutralizes the weight of the garage door so the openers can work without burning out and so you don’t have to be Arnold Schwarzenegger to open it.

I released the door from the opener and it began closing way too quickly. As I rushed over to try and slow it’s decent, I grabbed the handle with my left hand and was trying to grab anything with my right hand. Unfortunately, the only thing that got grabbed was my pinky finger – two knuckles up. The 1000 lb. door came crashing down so hard it broke the glass in one of its sections.

When the dust cleared and the glass had stopped clinking- I looked over to see my finger clamped firmly and squashed flatly between two sections of the heavy wooden door. I had no one around, no other neighbors were home, and I was trapped, in lots of pain, and unable to get free or lift the door (what would you do?). I tried pulling my cell phone out of my pocket but inside the garage there was no signal.

I did the only thing I could – I screamed for help through the broken glass…

Now, you may be wondering what in the world this painful story has to do with web design- but read on and I’ll explain…

I yelled for what seemed forever, but in reality was maybe five minutes, yet no one came. Now, for a few minutes I thought to myself – “I have a knife in my pocket- am I going to have to cut my own finger off to get free?” Seeing how flat it was crushed I didn’t really think it had much chance of surviving that trauma anyway…

I wasn’t that desperate quite yet and figured I should try calling for help again – and here’s where some recent training with internet marketing came in…( “What are you talking about, Bob?” you ask.)

Dan Kennedy always talks about “leading a customer through your site”. Don’t leave anything to chance. They want to be told exactly what to do next.

So as I stood there in gut wrenching pain, totally unable to move or get free, I thought to myself, “maybe people are hearing my cry for help, but don’t know where it’s coming from. It could be just echoing around the neighborhood…”

So in a last ditch effort, I started screaming (and I can be quite loud) “HELP! I’m trapped in a garage at 52 Lakeview Ave. and I need help NOW!” Within a minute or two about 5 guys came running down the street from somewhere (I don’t know where) and up the driveway. The specific directions worked! They began trying to pry the door up but it had come off the track and was jammed. So their prying was only clamping the door sections even tighter on my finger. OUCH! So once again, I got specific.

I told 2 guys to stay out side-3 to come around back and come inside. I had 2 go to work on the pulleys on either side and get them back in the track, the other one called 911. After what seemed like ages, the door was back on track and lifted high enough to allow the finger to be finally pulled out from between the sections. Ugh. It was nasty looking, flatter than a pancake…(almost surreal)

Now, how does this relate to Web site design? It’s very clear to me… In a matter of life and death (ok-life and death of a finger), nothing happened until I specifically yelled for help with exact directions where to come. I tried for five minutes screaming just for help- that didn’t work. Only when I screamed the address where I was at and what the problem was, did I finally get a good response. Zero before, 5 after. Hey! That’s a 500% increase!

We need to do the same thing with our web design and linking strategies. Specifics- Lead the client or potential client through the process step by step clearly. Use accurate keywords and descriptive text for all your links. Don’t scream out generically, or they will never know where to go next. All they’ll hear is a vacant echo, as they continue doing what they were doing before. And they’ll probably end up someone else’s client because they can’t hone in on where the cry for action is coming from and where they need to go.

Miraculously, after being rushed to the hospital, blood had begun to flow back into the finger and x-rays revealed only a broken knuckle. Because it had been caught sideways, the tendons and nerves were preserved and not cut, aside from some numbness and pain, the finger is well on its way to a full recovery (Phew! Really glad I didn’t cut it off now).

Moral of the story: Design your site and your linking strategies as if your life (or finger) depended on it. Be specific, be specific, and oh yeah, be specific.

Bob

Bob Volk, Founder of VolkNet Enterprises, is an Internet Entrepreneur and has started/co-founded many sites including http://volknet.com, http://seo-elite-services, and his newest venture, an automated link exchange program with a unique twist at http://Link-Blaster.com.
He specializes in Web Site Design, Marketing, and SEO Consultation for both small and medium size businesses doing $30 – $40 million a year.

Home improvement has become a passion and a hobby for so many of us lately. We all try to compete with each other, in our efforts to make our homes unique and personal, while keeping all comfort we need. The look of a garage door is important to accentuate the look of a house. Many people would never consider this to be the case because the garage is the traditionally overlooked and forgotten part of the house. It’s where the biggest mess is, where the most dirt is and where people rarely spend a lot of time.

As true as that is from the inside, from the outside the garage is a huge deal. This becomes truer with each passing year as architectural trends and consumer needs drive the need for bigger garages. These days a three car garage is quite common in a lot of areas and that means three garage doors spanning the front of the house.

Even one garage door can draw attention away from the outer house’s other features. When two of these are these garage doors are placed side by side it seems to take up at least half of the house. Going on three it’s easy to see how the house’s otherwise beautiful look can be swallowed up unless the doors are thought through carefully.

This is why the manufacturing of garage doors has become a booming industry. Different manufacturers bring different things to the table. Some offer heavier steel or a sturdier design. Some boast doors that can withstand high winds while other garage doors are meant to maintain themselves through varying climate conditions. The better in the business manage to offer it all.

With houses getting bigger and more lavish, though, the best garage door is one that not only has the aforementioned physical strengths, but a look that compliments the house without taking away from it. Because of this need we are now able to walk a street without seeing the same color and style of garage door twice.

Van Whitsett has published a number of articles, both online and offline. To learn more about garage doors, please visit: Garage Door

You’d be right to be concerned about security with your wireless garage door opener and remote. An intruder can gain access to your garage contents, or even your home if you don’t follow some simple security steps.

Different radio frequencies are used for communication between the remote and the opener. Tiny switches known as dip switches are used to adjust the frequency used between the two. It is a wise idea to reconfigure the dip switch settings to make sure your garage more secure.

A dip switch is a small block of plastic about the size of a dice cut in half. They are usually colored blue or red with 8 to 10 tiny white switch levers positioned up or down. Only when the up / down switch patterns match on both devices will your garage door opener remote control be able to communicate with the opener unit. By adjusting the switch pattern, you are changing the radio frequency used to communicate between the two.

You should be able to easily locate the dip switch on the opener and on the remote control clicker. But to get access to the dip switch on the remote you might need to open it up if the dip switch isn’t found in the battery compartment. Remove the screws holding the remote together, or carefully pry it apart if there are no screws. Once you have access to the dip switch on the remote, scramble the switch positions, and then match the positions on the openers dip switch block. It does not matter what the pattern looks like, so long as its a random pattern that would be difficult for someone to guess.

If you have trouble getting the remote to work after doing this, verify that the dip switch patterns are the same on both units. Then check the remote battery is in good condition, and as usual, make sure the opener has power, and operates normally using the control panel inside your garage. You might have to read the manual if all else fails.

If you are thinking of getting a new garage door opener or have already gotten one, then you will want to change settings, just to make sure everyone is honest. Don’t forget, your installer or anyone working with him knows your frequency switch settings unless you change them. So go ahead and mix up the switch pattern settings and test that it works.

Even if you are a garage door opener installation do-it-yourself type, you’ll want to make the same changes. Don’t just stay with the factory default settings. If you did, then anyone could just drive down your street with a compatible remote until he finds a door that opens and gives access to your home. Make sure that’s not you.

This advice also applies to anyone buying or renting a new home too. Just like you might change the lock to guarantee there are no spare keys floating around that could compromise your home security. You have no way of knowing how many previous residence there might have been. And you wouldn’t want someone to just walk right into your garage or home.

Garage Door Openers have been saving Americans from back injuries for over 35 years, yet there has been few new modifications or major innovations in these garage door openers. Sure there have been nice new features such as the garage door clicker so you do not have to get out of your car. And lights have been added as well; even timers, which turn off the lights if not in use for a certain number of minutes.

Believe it or not some people have voice activated garage door openers instead of you having to place your little finger over the button when you walk from your house to the garage. Pretty funny and perhaps for the person who has every thing. Yet we need more features for our garage door openers. I know what you are saying;

“Oh for Pete’s sake that is silly” or “That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard.”

Well I submit to you that I have a plan that will revolutionize garage door openers forever. How so you ask?

Well I propose that when you go into the garage and say “OPEN!” that the garage door senses the outside air and says;

“Are you sure, it is negative 12 degrees out there with wind chill, don’t you want to wait until you get into the car and start it first?”

Then you can say; “Why yes Genie, thank you for warning me!”

“By your command!”

Once the car is started the garage door opener senses this additional noise or shock sound waves from the car door closing and then it will open for you. So, the future will be pretty cool. Next the ceiling will open and you can vertically take off in your flying car and go to your next destination. Consider this in 2006.

Lance Winslow

Garage doors are no longer the regular roll-top ones, which have to be pushed up by hand. These days, garage door openers are provided with various accessories to make opening easier. No matter how heavy the garage door, it can be fitted with the right kind of opener. These openers ensure utmost safety and security for garages under any conditions. They are also provided with several options and in various designs to suit the exact requirements of the user. The best thing is, they can be installed within 3-5 hours (even do-it-yourself ones). A professional can install a garage door opener in 1 hour!

Garage door openers are of two kinds depending on the use: residential and commercial. In the commercial range of garage door openers, the main models are: Trolley, Jackshift, Hoist and the Slide models. While Trolley openers are used for standard lifting on sectional doors, Jackshift is used for grilles, rolling doors and shutters. Hoist operators are similar to Jackshifts but they are also suitable for heavy duty industrial doors. The slide door openers are meant for single and bi-parting slide doors and also for fire doors.

The main step in purchasing a garage door opener is to determine the actual drive system. Garage door openers are of three kinds depending on the drive system: belt driven, chain driven and direct drive. The most important points to be considered in a garage opener system are the kind of motor and the horsepower. Garage door openers differ in speed also. The average speed is 7 inches lift/drop per second. There are openers that operate at even double this speed.

Garage door openers are provided with different kinds of warranties. Safety is another important aspect while choosing the right garage door opener. It is mandatory that all automatic door openers should be equipped with a non-contact invisible beam system that can sense the approach of a person and make the door to reverse back to the open position. Other mandatory features of garage openers are: automatic lights, a timed reversing feature, a manual emergency release cord and a force adjustment feature.

Garage door openers are usually noisy but some advanced models are being designed to be really quiet. Proper maintenance and lubrication would also lessen the noise made by garage door openers. On the whole, garage door openers should be weather resistant, safe, and should have the least wire exposure for long life.

Garage doors can also be operated by a remote control. This is especially useful for people who have homes with multiple garages. However, it is better to have a rolling radio signal code for the control as it is easy for thieves to capture the code from thin air. Garage door openers can also have an automatic light, remote control and a wall operator, as well as the option of single/two/three button transmitters.