Mezzanine

The Sights, Sounds and Smells of The Garage Door

2016-03-24T12:56:02-05:00

Garage doors and garage door openers live in their own little worlds, or at least some of us would like to think as much. When it comes to understanding them though it isn’t really so hard. Most of the time they need absolutely no thought or maintenance at all, but from time to time it can’t hurt to check up on them. That is the tricky part, when do you need to be worried, when do you need to take action, when do you need to call somebody to help you find the source of a problem and of course when can you just brush something off? To figure this all out it would help to be a garage door professional yourself of course, but we aren’t all that lucky. You might also be able to get the run down from your local garage door professional, but again we don’t all have that sort of luxury. If you don’t have all of those options then you can be thankful that you found this article. In this article we are going to go through the sights, sounds and even smells of a garage door and garage door opener. This will of course also touch on the garage door as a whole, but it will mainly focus on the garage door and garage door opener portions of the garage.

First up are the sights of your garage door and garage door opener. This is probably one of the easiest ways to figure out if you should be looking to get something replaced, cleaned or just fixed up when it comes to your garage door and garage door opener. Some visual investigations of your garage door and garage door opener should happen at least every few months just in case something easily avoidable can be just that, avoided. Of course though you need to know at least a little bit of what you are are looking for. To start, any obvious pieces of material that are in the way of your garage door or on the garage door track are going to be an immediate problem. Otherwise what you want to look for are smaller problems. Things like rust forming, bending and discoloration and that sort of thing can be spotted early and saved from causing serious damage.Paint chips or abnormal wear and tear should also be noted if you can find it. After taking care of this inspection it is best to call your garage door repair or service person and let them know what is going on if there are any potential problems. They may be able to assist you over the phone or come out and do a quick job for this sort of thing. Knowing the extent of the damage or oddity beforehand will mean that they will be able to do their job faster and will hopefully be able to prepare better for it. This means they are in and out more quickly and you hopefully don’t have to wait for things like new parts.

The sounds of a garage door are something else that can really help you diagnose your garage door or garage door opener. Knowing you have a problem before it becomes a big problem is a great way to save a bit of money on repairs and to avoid what can be an extremely inconveniently timed malfunctioning garage door. Again though you really need to know what sort of things to listen for when it comes to your garage door and garage door opener. Thuds, unusual grinding, clunking noises. These are all signs that you should at least take a look at your garage door. If you also just notice a change in the volume or something like that of the garage door when opening or closing it is best to take note of it. If it is a one off thing, try and pinpoint what might have been different about this opening or closing of the garage door. If the garage door is just a bit louder, then you may be able to simply lubricate some of the moving parts and things will be back to normal in no time. If none of these things are the case then it may be time to call a garage door service person. A garage service person may even be a blue to pinpoint the problem simply from your description of the sound as well.

Lastly is smell. The smell is probably going to be the toughest and least likely thing to tip you off about your garage door or garage door opener’s problems. There are however a few specific things that you may be able to figure out through smell. Pests will definitely cause a smell and will be a danger to your garage door and garage door opener. A rotting or otherwise animal smell will be a good tip off and you should be able to do something with traps or simply call an exterminator. Another smell to keep your nose open for is if you smell something burning or smoky when your garage door opener is running. This is a pretty bad sign and you should definitely call somebody as soon as possible if this occurs. Refrain from continuing to use your garage door opener until somebody is able to look at it.

These are just a few of the sights, sounds and smells that come with owning a garage door. Hopefully you won’t be exposed to all of these in your time as a garage door and garage door opener owner, but at least now you have some idea of what you should be looking, smelling and listening for. As a garage door and garage door opener owner and operator you should always be listening for changes to how your garage door opener is operating. You should also do your best to inspect your garage door every so often in the event that something is visibly going wrong. Smelling isn’t going to be the most noticeable thing unless it is a real problem, but it is still smart to make sure that any changes in smell are thought about. Use common sense and your senses to make note of any changes in operation and you should be able to see any big problems coming.

Garage Spring Cleaning

2016-03-21T12:41:42-05:00

Depending on where you are in the world or how you feel about what brings about each season you are already feeling like its spring or just starting to see spring on the horizon. The clocks have been moved and there’s just one thing to do that many may dread, spring cleaning. It’s really not the only time that you should be cleaning your house, but it gives us a reason and hopefully the motivation to go that extra mile and hopefully be more productive in our cleaning. One thing that should be included in your spring cleaning this year is your garage. The garage is one of the often dreaded portions of the house that gets glossed over time and time again, and by glossed over I mean piked up with junk and dust covered. The garage is one of your greatest rooms if you let it be and keep it cleaned and organized. That part though isn’t always so easy though, which is why there is no better time than now to clean out your garage and get it into a more respectable state. This means that you will be able to use your garage a lot more and will just end up appreciating it a lot more as well.

Spring cleaning, it’s as we’ve said, something a lot of us really dread. What I normally do is decide on one part of the home to really get in order. Some neglected part of your house that has built up a whole load of junk, dirt, and whatever else it could accumulate. For myself this usually tends to be the garage, attic, basement or a shed. Because they are often only visited only when it is necessary to do so they often don’t get the same sort of cleaning attention that they might deserve or need. This is why they make perfect candidates for spring cleaning. Once cleaned you’ll find it much easier to move around your garage and find places for things and you will also most likely feel much better about your garage as a whole. This will hopefully lead you to use it more often and not neglect it so that it turns into the debacle that you ended up having to spend a whole weekend bringing back into order. A clean garage is not the easiest thing to get in many cases, but it is a worthwhile use of your time if you are able to keep it that way.

First though is the easy part, the exterior of your garage or to be more specific the garage door. The garage door is a great place to start because even if you haven’t cleaned it in years the cleaning process is still going to be pretty simple. Power washing or pressure washing your garage door may take just a few minutes if you have one large garage door or slightly longer id you have two. Regardless thought he whole thing probably takes less time than the act of driving to your local hardware store to rent a power washer if you don’t own one or know somebody who does. This quick cleaning job will hopefully give you the positive reinforcement and the motivation to push through to the tougher part. What is behind that now pristine garage door is the real trouble. In order to tackle that you’ll most likely need a great deal of time and some man power.

Get the whole family together if you can for this, the more heads and hands at your disposal the better. When it comes to cleaning and organizing your garage there are a few things that most people should do in order to make things easier on themselves. First off you should try and move out your cars. If you are spending your day in the garage with the garage door open then you should be able to keep an eye on your cars so leaving them out of the garage isn’t the biggest risk in the world. This will give you a lot more room to move around and space to organize things before bringing the cars back in. Another thing you’ll want is garbage cans to be empty and available. The amount of stuff that piles up throughout a year or so in your garage is pretty remarkable and most of it is really not worth saving any more. Lastly a big piece of advice is to go to the container store or find something similar. Shelves and water resistant storage boxes are the best way to get all that junk and all of those actually useful things into a state where they can be accessible but aren’t crowding around you while you walk from your car to the door. Having things put on shelves and into boxes will hopefully mean that more things have a “place” and you will not have to constantly create new piles in an attempt at organization.

Spring cleaning isn’t something we all love to do. In fact most of us will put it off for as long as we can unless there’s someone we want to impress or something coming over. Save yourself the trouble and just get to it as soon as possible. The sooner you get your garage under control the sooner you can start fitting your last car join or finding the sports equipment you have stored in there. An organized garage can make you enter the garage more and more as you are able to find what you’re looking for more easily and don’t get overwhelmed by the amount of stuff. Being able to clean your garage door extremely quickly is just another added bonus. If you don’t have a pressure or power washer don't despair. A bucket and sponge will still do nicely and you’ll be able to get the job done in not too much time more than you would have if you had a pressure washer. All in all there is no better time than now to ‘spring’ into action and get cleaning.

How To Set Up Your Garage Office

2016-03-19T12:08:54-05:00

Starting a business on your own can be tough. Doing so today has become easier with the age of the internet. Everything seems like it could be a service or a business and the world is just waiting to pay you for following that one weird passion of yours to the bank. The thing is though, you need a starting point. That is where the garage comes in. It may not be the flashiest place to start a business, but it comes with a lot of benefits that you might not otherwise think about. In this article we are going to look at some of the reasons why you would ever want to start you business in your garage. We will look at how the garage door and garage door opener come into play in this situation as well, obviously. We will also throw out a few ideas on how to turn your garage into your perfect office or at least your perfect pre-office space. It may not be a fancy co-working space downtown, but the space where your car used to be might just be all you need to start the business that makes you rich or at least happy some day.

In most cases the biggest reason why you might use your garage as an office is because of the cost. The garage is essentially free. You have already paid for it, or are paying for it with your mortgage, so you might as well use it. If you have extra space in your garage or maybe even sell your car to start up your new business venture then there is no better place than the garage. It is out of the way, it is probably already wired up and it shouldn’t get too hot or cold depending on your garage door. The garage also affords you the shortest commute ever and means that you are able to work anytime you want or need to. Inspiration can strike at any time, so it helps to be able to get to work at any time. Starting off as an entrepreneur you are usually putting in long days and nights and giving every odd hour you have to your new business. While this can be tiring and taxing, it helps when it is a place that is separate but at the same time, still very close to home. It doesn’t get much closer than in your garage.

How do your garage door and your garage door opener fit into all of this? In the garage doorway of course. Terrible jokes aside there is more than one reason why your garage door makes your garage office better than any old office. One reason is security. Garage doors provide an astounding amount of security, much more than your average door which means that your valuables, information, computers and more are safe from prying eyes and theft unless you do something like forgetting to close your garage door. Another benefit to using a garage as your office is the ability to open up your garage door on those better days. It may be a simple thing, but that breeze, a bit of sunlight and fresh air can be the perfect thing to make that five minute brainstorm truly productive. The last benefit we’ll mention is that big opening! If you are doing any shipping or receiving with this new office you are going to be thankful you have a big garage door to fit things through. As your business grows you will be able to put off moving to a warehouse and office location as you can use your garage longer for this joint operation than you would be able to in your typical home office.

What makes a garage office not just a stack of files in an empty garage and a real place where business is being done? The recipe for the perfect garage office is pretty simple. The first thing you need to do is clean it up. Any spills, dirt or just smelly things are going to have to be taken out or cleaned up. Next is to make sure your garage door and the garage door weather seal are in good shape. It is best to do this because you don’t want to put it off and have your files or computer ruined by a storm that floods the garage or mice that get into your garage because the weather seal was old and left a gap in the garage door. Next is to bring in a desk, any old one really should be fine. After that is a chair, from there you’ll have to know the sort of stuff you in particular will need. Lastly, depending on the climate you will want to insulate your garage door. Garages can get cold or hot, and while you may have to sweat for your business it is best to keep that to metaphorical sweating.

Starting a business can be tough and you can be faced with all sorts of tough decisions. Where to get things started can be a relatively easy one to decide. Using your garage for your early office days will give you the flexibility of a real office with a lot of the productivity while at the same time costing you nearly nothing. You’ll get the same security that a garage door and garage door opener gives your home and cars as well as the ability to do things like make and receive shipments all from the comfort of your garage office. Setting up your garage office is pretty simple and cheap, but the most important thing to remember is to seal up your garage door. Nothing is worse than losing progress and productivity to a storm that manages to break through an old weather seal on your garage door and fries your computer.

Garage Door Insulation TIps

2016-03-16T12:07:43-05:00

There’s a heatwave happening pretty much all over. Whether it is making your area a lovely crisp 65 when you’re used to colder this time of year or a balmy 80, winter it seems is ending a bit early this year. What better time then to think about your energy bill right? Prices on gas and natural gas continue to fall, but who knows how long that will last. If you also enjoy minimizing your carbon footprint there is no time like the present to think about lessening your energy usage by upping the role your garage door plays in keeping your home’s temperature constant. When it comes to your garage door there are really three things that can help to keep your home from using so much energy. There is the door itself, the insulation and the weather stripping or seal. The garage is a large room and in some cases may be the largest most open room i your home. This means that there is a large amount of air in the room and this can be used to create a pretty nice buffer zone actually to keep your home’s temperature relatively constant. Heat and cold both will move in and out of your home, especially through drafty areas in your home which is why minimizing them is a very good idea.

The number one thing you can do to make your garage work for you to help keep a constant temperature is to close your garage door and keep it closed. There are a number of reasons to keep your garage door closed whenever it doesn’t need to be open and this is just yet another. With your garage door open the wind and cold or hot air can blow into your garage and carry away whatever change in temperature your air conditioning or heating has helped to accomplish in minutes. Without a closed garage door all the insulation or sealing you have made sure to have on your garage door is worthless because it really isn’t in place. The default position for your garage door should always be closed, just for security reasons, but it will also help your garage door to do its job in keeping out things like a drafty breeze or hot dry air that you might not want coming into your garage or home. If you do none of the rest of the things in this article you should at least do this as this will make the biggest difference of all.

The second big tip you can take on how to keep your garage and home a more comfortable temperature for less is to utilize that little strip of rubber on the bottom of your garage door. Just lie the tip about keeping your garage door closed it is important to minimize the about of air moving in and out of your garage door as much as possible. The best way to do this is to keep your garage door closed whenever possible and to have that closed garage door be sealed as tight as possible. The weather stripping at the bottom of your garage door can help make this a possibility. One problem though is that this weather stripping can start to wear down. This rubber seal makes up for small changes in alignment and things expanding and contracting in the heat and cool weather. This means that while your garage door may last for years and years, your weather seal may last for just a fraction of that. If you notice gaps in the space between your garage door and the ground then it may be time to get a new seal. Most of the time this can be replaced on your own and is extremely cheap, especially when you take into account the money you’ll save with the new seal.

The last thing you can do to up your garage doors chops when it comes to keeping your home’s temperature constant or more easily managed is installing insulation. When it comes to cheap garage doors they typically don’t have the most insulation in them to begin with. Unless you make a point of getting a garage door with insulation built in there is a chance that you are just dealing with the insulation capabilities of whatever material your garage door is made out of. If you realize that you want to do more than just use whatever material your garage door is made of to do some insulating. What you do then is look at what you can do after market. There are really two choices, DIY kits or getting insulation put into your garage door by a professional. The former can work well for some but can be a bit of a one size fits some idea. The second will be more tailored to your needs but will also be much more expensive. It is best to think of how much insulation you feel you might need and to go from there.

Keeping your home the same temperature while you are in it can be a costly and energy consuming task. In many cases this might be your most costly bill of all. Doing little bits to minimize this though will keep your bills down and save you money every month which in the long run will add up while you can feel good about doing something a little good for the environment and your wallet. Insulating your garage door, sealing it correctly and most of all keeping it closed whenever possible is very easy to do and can end up saving you a great deal. Insulation may be a bit costly when thought of as an investment, but the others definitely don’t need any rationalizing to make them seem like good ideas. If you use your garage as something other than car storage the usefulness of these tips jumps up another huge notch. Having a more moderate temperature in your garage opens up the space to more uses and helps it become a more flexible and valuable space.

Garage Spaces Part 2

2016-03-13T20:02:04-05:00

In the last article we looked at why you would ever want to do something as odd as work from your garage. Garage’s have the stereotype of being musty, greasy and even a bit dirty. You keep your cars and forgotten boxes in them so there is really no reason to spend more than the minimum amount of time that it takes to move from your car to your door and vice versa in them. However this doesn’t have to be the case. In the last article we really focused more on why you need to move out of your home and into the garage, and not so much on the exact reasons that your garage is better in many ways than the rest of your home for a workspace. If you hadn’t already guess then that is exactly what this article is going to touch on. We’ll talk about things like having your own space, the continued use of your garage door and flexibility of having a garage as your workspace. If you aren't convinced that you need your own workspace you can look back at the previous article, if you are reading this and thinking that you will never be using your garage as a business you can go look at more directly garage door related articles however for everyone else, let’s get started.

One of the reasons that garages make such good and easy work spaces is because of the ease with which they can be converted. Your garage most likely already has a few outlets in it, and a lot of open floor space. Whether you just need a desk to be moved in and some cords hooked up or some larger pieces of machinery you can still probably get the job done in just a few hours. You can load any furniture directly from a moving van or truck into the garage because of the garage door and in no time you will have a fully functioning garage workspace. The open space will help you stay focused and organized while the closeness to home means that you can work any time of the day. Having an office that is technically out of the house is great because it lets you compartmentalize and differentiate between your work life and home life. It makes it easier to leave things to your next work day so that you are only pulling ten or 12 hour days if you have to. Otherwise you will be able to keep things separate so you can focus at the tasks at hand instead of getting sidetracked by household responsibilities when you should be doing work and vice versa.

Just as we talked about the garage door being instrumental in allowing you to quickly move in any equipment or desks that you need for your garage work space the garage door also helps in other ways. Many home businesses have you doing every portion of your business all on your own. You are the marketer, customer service, shipping company, manufacturer, designer and more. Your products are made and shipped from that garage and so the garage door becomes a bit like a shipping bay. If you had to do this through your home’s doors and such you could be constrained by things like tight hallways and doorways while with a garage there is almost no limit to the size of what you are selling and shipping because of the large opening afforded by a garage door. The garage door allows you much more room to expand, literally, while still running your business out of your home. With a garage door and garage you can store and ship a lot of stock of varying sizes and quantities unlike you would be able to unless you had a dedicated venue for shipping and what not.

The flexibility of the garage is one of the things that really rings true for a lot of people. One year it can be an extra bedroom for a family member and the next it can be a playroom for the kids. This is what makes it the perfect prospective office space. You can change the space to adapt to your needs as they come up. When you first start your own business or some side venture you may not really know what you will need. It may end up that down the line you need some piece of machinery for a process you were outsourcing, you need to be able to grow as whatever you are doing grows and so the garage allows your to do that. The open room and easy to manage garage door means you can bring in a bigger desk, more equipment etc. with no trouble at all whereas in a smaller room in a typical house or even small office space you would quickly need to start deciding on what was exactly necessary and what wasn’t.

No matter what you are planning to do with all this space being productive in a venture takes time, effort and focus. A garage workspace gives you the space to put in that time and effort and the ability to focus. Whether your venture is screen printing a few funny shirts that you and your friends thought up or starting an ecommerce platform that you hope to take over the industry with it all can start with a desk and a computer. Your needs will change and grow as you idea does and so the garage is perfect for being your shipping center, command center, and research center all at the same time. Even if things don’t end up working out for whatever idea you had in a couple of years your garage might be transformed back into a car storage room or kid’s play room. This will also all be super easy to perform and will end up costing little to know money to revert back to its former glory, making the prospect of taking the plunge into your garage office all the easier.

The Garage Workspace Part 1

2016-03-11T20:00:50-06:00

When it comes to garages there are a lot of things that you can do with the space. The most common use of the space is to store things like your car, some clothes and things that you are really just putting off parting with. While cars are a great thing to keep in your garage you may have a two car garage with only one car needing to be stored or even no cars at the moment. Maybe you are a big cyclist or just enjoy taking public transit everywhere for the environmental benefit. Whatever your reasoning is for not owning a car your garage should never be a reason that keeps you beholden to a car. Garages are one of the most versatile rooms in your entire home and so can store a car for the first five years you own a home, be used for something else for the next eight and then spend another ten years storing two cars. These changes will all even be relatively easy and cheap to undergo making the garage shift to meet your home’s needs quite easily despite the large difference of what those actual needs are. One of the best ways to use your garage if it isn’t being used to store cars is for a workspace.

More people than ever are working from home, telecommuting, or simply working for themselves. The internet has opened up the world to us in a way that lets us stay in our homes at the same time. This means that your next business idea or income stream could very well be started and managed all from a small desk in your home with a laptop and an internet connection and anything else you might actually need. Entrepreneurs are sprouting up left and right and the crazy thing is that many of them run their businesses almost entirely from their homes. Garages make the perfect offices for a bunch of reasons that we’ll get to in this article, but the take away from this article for anyone who runs their own little business or is thinking about maybe doing so in the future is to think of your garage not as the place where you keep your cars all the time, but as a place that you can mold into practically any type of useable space. The garage is like the room that you can make huge changes to with almost no consequences so embrace that freedom.

Working from home can be tough, if you have kids they may be home at hours when you are expected to talk with clients or customers. You can easily get distracted by the pile of dishes in your sink and things quickly get out of hand to where you have been cleaning and getting other house related errands done when you were really supposed to be working. It happens to pretty much everyone who tries to be productive at home and can be tough to stop. One of the best ways is to get yourself a space that is somewhat removed from the chores of your home. This lets you get into the zone of working on your own and so you become more productive and don’t procrastinate like you might if you were to be doing your work at the kitchen table like you may have been doing before. While an office is nice it is usually a luxury that get’s replaced by things like a child’s bedroom or something similar. The best type of office is in a place that is entirely devoted to work.

What better place to work then than your garage? The garage can be set up pretty quickly to be a great office with just a little bit of time, effort and money. In just a few days you can go from spending your time working between the living room and your dining room table to having a dedicated desk in your garage that has all of your files on hand, a printer if you need on etc. Moving things in and out of a garage is easy, the garage door means you can have your desk wheeled in within about five minutes and any filing cabinets, wires, stock can be quickly transported to and from your garage work space in absolutely no time at all. Whether you are a creative putting together elaborate pieces to sell to people all over the world or if you are someone who is working remotely with a company that you used to go in to work with every day the garage office can be just the solution to all of your problems. It’s as permanent or temporary of a solution as you need and can be as minimal or luxurious as you want it to be. Taking meetings in your garage may not be the best idea, but other than that the garage workspace is all but a replacement for the traditional office space.

The garage is one of the most flexible spaces in your entire home. The garage door and inherently open area gives you the flexibility to change things at a moment’s notice. One of those changes you might make is to finally really commit to that business idea you’ve always had and turn it into an office. Or to just telecommute to your job and spend more time with your kids by avoiding the unnecessary meetings and commutes that come with the typical office space. It may not be the most luxurious space for client pitches and meetings, but the way the internet is opening up the world of business you just might be able to build your corporate empire from your garage in you pajamas. All you have left to do is move the desk into your garage, hook up a router and a few extension cords and you are quite literally “in business”.

A Garage Studio

2016-03-08T19:59:49-06:00

On this blog we talk about pretty much everything there is to talk about when it comes to garage doors. We’ve talked about the different types of garage doors, different types of garage door openers, maintenance tips for garage doors and garage door openers and things of that nature. We also delve into things like home gyms in your garage, why a garage door is a really under appreciated piece of machinery especially during the winter and bunches of other things. Today however we are going to take inspiration from one of the most famous garages out there. While that isn’t saying a lot it is something that is pretty cool if you are into garages and all of the flexibility that they afford. With that in mind this article will touch a little bit on one of the more famous garages out there, Marc Maron’s. And about some things that you and others have done or can do in your garage. If you don’t know Marc Maron hosts an extremely successful podcast from his garage and does all the recording, interviewing, etc in his studio there. You may not think of your garage as the prospective perfect studio for hosting an innovative talk show, but when you don’t really feel like laying out tons of money for a studio space a garage can do pretty well.

In previous articles we have talked about how your garage can be turned into things like an audiophile’s paradise, a sports den for you and your friends, and even a place for your band to practice and perform when you haven’t really got the resources or space for anything other than a garage space. However, there is another creative thing that you can turn your garage into and that is a recording studio. Recording studios are finicky rooms that can really always be improved and made better but the main thing about them is they should be relatively open spaces with good acoustics and be soundproofed. This means that they need sound insulation more than anything. Garages are typically already relatively open and have open ceilings and cemented floors which can allow for a great deal of sound inside. However, the problem comes when things are happening outside of the garage. You can’t always schedule your recording sessions around when the garbage is getting picked up or your neighbors get home for a big trip. These things need to be accounted for in some way.

The best way to help your garage into becoming a recording studio type area is to work on sound proofing the garage door. Despite good insulation in your garage door if you want to do real recording you will need to pick up some after market insulation solutions. things like foam boards and cloth coverings can do wonders for your garage space if you put them onto the inside and outside of your garage door and cover your windows with them. Sound carries through the air incredibly well and stopping it isn’t easy. Equipped with good microphones and some soundproofing though you can really start whatever sort of recording you hope to do in your garage with minimal fuss. As long as you can do some low end sound editing you should be able to handle the task of getting just what you want onto the recording. Whether it’s dramatic readings of a book you love, live puppet theatre, podcasts, or music you should be able to at least start these sorts of projects in your garage. It may not be the best place to do things long term, but if you look at podcaster Marc Maron you can see that he has in face continued to use his garage for this long after it was really necessary for him to save the money.

The garage door is another important aspect of good sound proofing. If you are thinking of doing some recording in your garage and have the opportunity to invest in a new garage door then you should take it. While a garage door will probably not be able to do all of your soundproofing that you need the right garage door with insulation built in to it can really do wonders for the amount of sound that gets through. This will save you money on the after market garage door sound insulation as well as save you from the frustration of having things just not come out how you want them to on the recording. Another thing to do if you are thinking of starting the noise insulation process is get your garage door realigned. Small gaps between your garage door and the walls or floor can allow a great deal of sound through no matter how much insulating you do elsewhere. the weather stripping on your garage door also is a very important piece when it comes to noise insulation. Sound can slip through any of those cracks so it’s best to seal things up tight before you start spending money on egg crates and foam boards to improve your sound insulation.

If you just started recording your albums or dramatic slam poetry in your garage your neighbors might not be overjoyed and they probably wouldn’t really come out to well. That’s why you have to block out the sound from both sides and get some serious noise insulation going on. The garage is a great place to start any sort of side venture or passion project because it can be transformed into the perfect workspace so easily, in this case it can take just a few hundred dollars to really get your garage sounding like a real recording studio. While that may seem like a lot to some, when you look at the alternative of revamping an entire room or paying for private studio time the cost is next to nothing. Your garage doors and windows are the most important things to focus on first and after that you can just focus on the music or whatever it is you’re doing.

A Garage For Motorcycles

2016-03-06T14:35:30-06:00

It could be said, and certainly has been said on this blog multiple times that the main function of both garages and garage doors as well as all of the accessories that go along with them mainly focus on cars. Cars are the main reason why people have garages and the main way that people really utilize their garages is by storing their cars in them. However, as we have also said a few times over now garages aren’t a single purpose unit. Garages have many different things that make them useful and many ways that they can be used. One of those many ways is to house another type of vehicle, one that doesn’t get a whole lot of love these days, but we are going to take a look at how motorcycle and moped owners utilize their garages and garage doors. We’ll take a look at some of the differences in how motorcycle owners and car owners might use their garages and garage doors and at some of the similarities that make garages so well equipped for handling all sorts of different vehicles as well as really anything when it comes to convenient storage and usability. The main reason that garages are so used when it comes to cars is because of the convenience factor along with the security and safety that they offer. The garage door along with an automatic garage door opener means that these things are available all at the touch of a button. For car owners and drivers this is something that can be pretty great because it allows them to remain in their car while they open and close their garage door which means that you save a few minutes every time that you leave and arrive at your house. This type of time can really add up pretty quickly and so makes the garage door and automatic garage door opener obviously quite popular with car owners. However, this don’t really have the same appeal of motorcycle riders or bikers. Getting off your bike for a moment to open a manual garage door without an automatic garage door takes just a few seconds and you could even open and close your garage door without getting back onto the bike to move it. So does having an automatic garage door opener make sense for anyone who rides a motorcycle? Or is it that owning a car is the only reason you might want an automatic garage door opener? If you thought for a second that you shouldn’t get a garage door opener for your garage door because you own a motorcycle then you are mistaken. While you might be able to move in and out of your garage and close the garage door yourself it is a slight inconvenience and if you have a car it makes much more sense to still have an automatic garage door opener for all of the times when you will be using your car and not your motorcycle. The automatic garage door also can still make your life easier, you won’t need to do much if you have the remote accessible while riding meaning that you can just coast in and out of your garage with ease on your motorcycle or moped. However, this saves you really only a few seconds and for most wouldn't be a worthwhile reason to invest in something that could cost quite a bit for just a few extra seconds. The real reason to still have a garage door opener for your garage door if you are only a motorcyclist or biker is for the security. The security that an automatic garage door opener gives garage is something that really can’t be over stated. Garage door openers can protect your bike by really locking down that garage door in a big way. Home security as well as garage door security has come a long way since those first garage doors and you and your motorcycle might as well benefit from those advances rather than just letting car owners do so. Automatic garage door openers may not seem necessary to someone who can hop on and off of their vehicle in just a few seconds, however with the advancements made in automatic garage door openers it isn’t all about the opening of the garage anymore it is also important when and for whom the garage door opens. Garages house a lot of valuable items, including that motorcycle you are most likely very fond of. This means that having an automatic garage door opener can help protect your garage and your motorcycle even when you aren’t around to do so. While the convenience factor might sway some the idea of security for all of your vehicles and your home should more than make the case for a garage door and automatic garage door openers. Garage doors and garages may seem to some to be really just something that people use to keep their cars close by and safe without a whole lot of hassle. However, they are pretty much a great asset for any homeowner whether they own a car, a motorcycle, a moped or just a bunch of stuff they don’t want to keep in their house really. The main factor when it came to why garage door openers and garage door openers were such a good idea has shifted away from the idea of convenience which was for a long time their main draw to security. Garage doors and garage door openers are getting smarter with more technological advances and so they are in some ways becoming one of the best home security tools you can use to keep your home safe. Even if you aren’t too worried about having your motorcycle subject to weather or being kept out in the open where someone could steal it there is a very slim possibility that you don’t own one car, which means that you will most likely want to have a garage door and automatic garage door opener regardless.

Garage Door Maintenance Is Important

2016-03-03T14:33:10-06:00

There are things that require maintenance and there are things that really don’t. Paper cups can be thrown away pretty easily and things like new TVs or even most more advanced tech gadgets usually aren’t worth repairing because the difference between repairing and replacing them is so small. For this reason a lot of people have started to think that maintenance of most things isn’t really an issue. Maintenance is seen as something you don’t really have to do unless you know about something well enough to know that you have to maintain it or you have free maintenance or something like that. Besides these cases there are very few things that people still see as necessary to maintain. As things become more automated in our lives people begin to forget that many of the products and machines in or lives suffer a fair bit of wear and tear despite how durably or not durably they are built. One example of this is of course the garage door and the garage door opener. Another common example though is the car, which has become more technical over the past decades and become easier to neglect leading to people knowing really less and less about it. In this article we will take a look at the problems with this new disposable lifestyle attitude some have adopted and in particular at how it could affect someone who owns the above three machines or products. The garage door is first. The garage door honestly doesn’t need a ton of maintenance for the bulk of its life. It is relatively easy to have a garage door that breaks infrequently or almost never at all with an astoundingly small amount of maintenance. Things like inspecting it for rust or chipping paint and lubricating it every so often is really all you need to do. If you have a wooden garage door you may need to be a bit more vigilant to make sure that there is no rotting or cracking in the wood but otherwise what is required of you is pretty easy. If you remembered to lubricate the moving parts of your garage door and nothing showed itself to be having an unusual amount of wear and tear every few months you could easily put in just a few hours over the life time of your garage door to ensure that it last for many many years. However the important thing is to just make sure that you schedule the time or remember to inspect and maintain the door from time to time. On top of this you also need to make sure that if you do notice something that you seek out real help or a real solution to whatever the problem is so it doesn’t persist and affect other portions of the garage door. The second thing we mentioned which still needs maintenance from time to time is that pesky garage door opener. Garage door openers are the things that make the magic happen and if that isn’t working it is a pretty good chance that your garage door is also much less useful. Knowing how to keep your garage door well maintained and down so is important to keeping your garage a usable space and for keeping your garage door working. A problem with your garage door opener can cause a problem with your garage door making them both in need of repairs which means more money and time without a garage for you. Maintenance of both is important and if you read the previous paragraph you might be surprised to find that the garage door opener can be maintained in much the same way as the garage door. The basics of the garage door opener are that the moving parts need to stay lubricated and that you need to keep track of when parts might need to be replaced. The only problem is that just inspecting your garage door opener and staying vigilant doesn’t necessarily make sure that you are doing everything right. Your garage door opener may need parts replaced at certain times or after a certain amount of cycles so having a manual or a professional maintain your garage door opener does have it’s upsides as they will have the expertise to guide you. Lastly is the car. It is pretty directly related to the garage and the garage door and is a big culprit for convincing people that they don’t really need to take care of their things because they are only built to last so long. Cars need an astoundingly small amount of maintenance compared to cars of previous decades and as electric cars and self driving cars become the norm we are bound to see that continue. It used to be that in order to own a car for more than a month or so you needed to have some idea of how it worked or at least know someone else who did. People needed to change their oil more often, replace pads, drain fluids, the whole works. Now cars are made to go thousands of miles without maintenance and the majority of the maintenance many people now see as somewhat optional. Cars are no longer driven until they are unable to move but instead they’re often replaced because they are too old or are just not worth fixing up enough to be usable anymore. Now, I am not hating on the idea that things are less expensive to buy in the first place but don’t last as long. The dispvosablitily of things is great for a lot of consumers and lets them keep up with the times more easily. However maintenance should not turn into something from a bygone era but instead should be something that is remembered as a way to keep the things that cost more or are even just not as interesting maybe from breaking down before they really should. Simple things like tuning up your car or calibrating your garage door correctly are very easy, very inexpensive for most and can push the longevity of your car to brand new heights if you keep them up. This means that while you spend a small amount of money every so often it really won’t matter in comparison to the large amount of money on buying a new car or garage door that you will save.

What Happens When Garage Door Springs Break

2016-02-29T14:20:21-06:00

Something that might get a lot of attention from people if you know someone it has happened to recently is a broken garage door spring. And rightly so, it’s probably one of the most dangerous and alarming things that can happen when it comes to your garage door so most people get pretty surprised when it happens and can even get scared when it first happens. In this article we’ll take a look at the garage door spring in particular and what happens when it breaks and why your garage door spring snaps. This should hopefully help you to not be as alarmed or surprised if or when your garage door spring breaks. The disappointing thing is that your garage door springs are most likely going to break before the rest of your garage door which means they will need to be replaced. However, the flip side of this is that your garage door will continue to work with the replacement of the broken garage door springs pretty much just as well as it was when it was brand new. Replacing your garage door springs is pretty essential and there are some DIY videos and what not out there but we can’t really recommend those here. They are tough to follow unless you have exactly the make and model of everything that is being used in the article and even then as someone without experience replacing garage door springs the job can be extremely dangerous. With that said, let’s take a look at just why your garage door springs are snapping you late at night or just surprising you by not working when you get home for work. You’re still asking yourself, why is my garage door spring going to break or why is my garage door spring broken though? The main reason is that your garage door spring is under a lot stress. Day in and day out your garage door spring is taking the weight of your garage door off of the garage door opener and making it easier for you and your garage door opener to open and close it. This means that the garage door springs are lifting quite a few pounds and stretching or expanding to help your garage door open and close a few times a day. This coiling and uncoiling is what your garage door springs are made for but having metal springs under so much tension and stress means that they can only last so long. If you have some paperwork from your garage door’s installation you will most likely be able to find some information on your garage door springs. Garage door springs because they are under so much tension are usually rated for a number of opening and closing cycles until they eventually break. They may last longer than this number of cycles, but most people really don’t have a way of recording just how many garage door cycles they have gone through because the number is a bit hard to keep track of as it quickly grows into the thousands. 10,000 is usually the minimum rating for your average garage door spring so unless there is more than the usual wear and tear on your garage door spring it should last to around that point with some garage door springs even being rated for more cycles if they are better quality than the average garage door spring, but for the most part 10,000 is a good starting point. Garage doors go through a lot of opening and closing so if you think that your garage door spring has broken before its time there is a possibility that it may be true, but it is also possible that you underestimate the amount of times your garage door opens and closes on a daily basis. If both of the adults in say a family of four drive to work separately that is a minimum of two cycles a day. Add to that maybe a kid or two who leave for school and come back and that’s one or two more cycles. On top of this are times where you might leave the house and come back aside from just commuting to work which add another few cycles in your average week. These cycles quickly add up to 30 or 40 in your average week meaning that your garage door cycles and the amount of wear and tear put on your garage door springs may in face be more than you thought. If you still think that your garage door springs have broken before they should have you can ask to see them when they get replaced. Look for things like rust as this can mean that your garage door springs did in fact snap or break before they should have if the break is near the rusted area. This is something that you should definitely worry about because your new garage door springs may fall victim to the same problems if no changes are made. This will mean that you will end up paying for more garage door springs than you should and definitely more than you want to. This problem could be from a problem with your garage door or something as simple as you needing to make sure that you lubricate your garage door springs more often in red to avoid this kind of thing from happening again. The best way to get a good idea of how to avoid this problem in the future is to ask whoever is removing your garage door springs and replacing them what they thing the problem may have been. Garage door springs make a lot of noise when they snap and break and your garage door will be rendered pretty much useless if and when they do. Knowing why it’s happening and that it’s a pretty normal occurrence that doesn’t mean that you have ruined your garage door and garage door opener though is good for those who worry. Knowing why your garage door springs are likely to break and why they need to be replaced as soon as possible will help you come to terms with the small cost associated with it and can even help you to understand how your garage door works. In this last paragraph I want to reiterate something I mentioned earlier, if you find that your garage door spring is broken and you can’t open the garage door for this reason please do not attempt to replace it yourself. Only one of the garage door springs may have snapped and the job is a dangerous one for those who don’t have any experience doing so.

The Garages of The Future

2016-02-25T12:08:32-06:00

We’ve talked about pretty much all three at this point so now it is time to talk about them together and about how they might affect garages and garage doors in the future. It’s been said and it is being talked about a lot in the tech industry as well as the automotive industry that these three factors may collide to create a perfect storm of growth. Self driving cars, car sharing apps and electric cars are thought to all converge in the near future to become very important to one another and so the consumer. It’s all pretty interesting and exciting to think about and so we are going to look at what that might mean for the average person. What does all of this mean for the average homeowner with two cars in their two car garage? In this article we’ll go through that a bit and look at how all three could affect the average person who drives themselves to work every day along with their spouse who also drives to work. We will also quickly explain of course the relationship between these there factors in order to make things easier to understand in general. The average electric car is somewhat out of the realm of the average person. They have large upfront costs and really only make sense for those that are driving contained to one area and then they have lower maintenance and fuel costs making them viable. Car sharing apps like Uber and Lyft have a large amount of overhead tied up in paying drivers because they are also in a way paying the drivers to rent the cars while they are working. Self-driving cars again will most likely have high upfront costs making them too expensive to be worthwhile for all but the rich early adopters. However, these high upfront costs would be balanced out by the low maintenance, low fuel and no driver costs for a company like Uber or Lyft. What this means is that these companies are very interested in purchasing large numbers of these electric self driving cars as soon as possible in order to lower costs in the long run. In essence this is the whole convergence, this lower cost in the end will mean that they can charge less and profit more driving more people to their services. Then this of course means they can buy more electric self driving cars which broadens their service and we have the same thing occuring. Self driving cars are most likely not going to affect the average driver too much at first. People will definitely be distrustful of the cars and most people won’t be buying them. This on top of the cost means that after the launch of these most people will still have their daily commutes in their cars relatively unaffected. They may see a self driving car or two but they are still going to know that they need two cars in their garage for both of them to get to work. Electric cars in many ways have already made their way into the mainstream. They are somewhat expensive still, but they are in some people’s garages and people are generally happy with them if they are the type of person who chose to buy an electric car this early. A few garages may have charging stations built in to them at this point but otherwise very few changes have been made. More garages will continue to prioritize electric cars as they become more popular but to begin with the adoption will most likely be fairly slow. The car sharing apps are really the ones that bring it all together. With electric cars and self driving cars they will be able to make cars more available for cheaper to anyone with a phone. This means that a lot of people may find themselves doing the mental math between how much it all cost to go to the bank in their car or calling a car to drive them there and back. Once this happens is when the average person will truly be affected. It may take a while for these apps to bring the self driving cars online and it may take a while for people to trust them to bring them to and from their destinations without the help of a real person, but these things will be done in time and then more cars will be sitting in garages unused and some real changes will start to occur in enough time. People will start to see that their cars are costing them more money than they are worth and may even become an inconvenience. This will be when most people will save their cars for trips and special journeys, maybe selling one car and just keeping their favorite or largest car for family trips. We may still be a few years off from this, but once all three of these factors come into play we are going to see the number of single car families grow I believe. Families will no longer need to pay for two cars and should have more freedom of mobility for less money. Their garages will be more open which means that they can be used for all sorts of new things. The garage is one of the most flexible rooms in your home so it is most likely that the garage may even out last the two car family in terms of usefulness. Whatever happens the garage can be used for a number of things with little to no extra cost. A home gym, home office, storage facility and many more ideas are just a trip to walmart or ikea away and will improve your life maybe even as much as self driving cars and their ability to take you wherever you need to go for barely any money.

Garages With Electric Cars

2016-02-22T12:06:08-06:00

The world of cars is changing every day and it seems that garages are changing with them. One thing that has always been said to be on the horizon is actually really here with more on the horizon and that is the electric car. The electric car was always something that was supposedly just over the horizon technologically for many years. The electric car was supposed to something that really changed the world in a big way and in some ways it has, but if you follow the industry at all you may have heard that more big change is on the way when it comes to cars. With that in mind I am hear to talk a little bit about your garage and how it might need to change in the near future to really capitalize on all of these new developments in the auto industry. New technologies and ideas don’t just hit the mainstream right away so there may still be some time for you to get acquainted with the idea, but with Tesla rumored to be working on an electric car for the masses at a lower price point the time of electric cars may soon be here. In addition to Tesla both Nissan and Chevy have their own electric cars which shows that this isn’t just something scientists and engineers dream up anymore. In your garage you probably have a car or two and at this point neither of them are most likely electric. You may have a hybrid as those are certainly popular, but with electric cars and plug in hybrids vehicles becoming ever more popular it is time to really look at what your garage could be doing or might need to be doing in the near future to accommodate these sorts of things. The number one thing that you will most likely need is an outlet. Not some old dirty one that you probable shouldn’t use because there are exposed wires and all that and maybe some of the plastic housing is loose, a real quality outlet to make it so that you don’t flinch and pray overtime you connect something to it. A real outlet will mean that you can rest easy that the amount of power needed to power a car will be able to get to it without you having to worry about it all starting a fire or something similar. A real outlet could also mean that a high powered plug with proper grounding and maybe even a timer to make sure that your car doesn’t over charge or is charging at the optimal times. in any case you will need at least one reliable outlet for your garage should you become an electric car owner and hopefully it will be in a relatively easy to use part of the garage so that wires don’t have to cross your garage just to charge the car. A charging station for your car isn’t a bad idea, it really just means that you have a set spot for your car to park in your garage and an outlet available that will let you charge your car whenever it is at home relatively easily. This means your won’t need to move wires and all that around whenever you leave and arrive, it will be simple. Maybe you will wrap up the cord and put it away nearby but otherwise there isn’t much to do making going to the gas station a thing of the past and your life a bit easier. However, there is more you could do. You could take your charging station to the next level and live the environmentally friendly dream you’ve always want to just by tweaking your garage a bit really. With the price of things like solar coming down all the time you could throw some solar panels onto your roof and could very well charge your car that way if you have some down time during daylight hours. These sort of things are making little dents in the way we use energy and having an electric car that doesn’t actually cost you too much to charge up or maybe even anything eventually is definitely a budget and environmentally friendly choice that many will have to take a look at in the near future. An electric car in your garage doesn’t really change your garage all that much. You hopefully have the proper safety measures in place to handle high charging electronics and so it shouldn’t be too much of a stretch of most garages right now. It is probable that most people will have an electric car and a gas powered car in their garages if they have two cars. People will most likely have some doubts about electric cars and it has been seen that they are really more for people with a relatively normal daily commute and not for those looking to make cross country trips. This means that those who have two electric cars will be outliers and so most garages will just be housing one electric car at a time. This means they will justness the one charging area and if they want a small amount of solar panels in order to make the car relatively cost free and safe. Electric cars are coming, it’s nearly unavoidable that there will be tons more in our very near future so there is no time like the present to really begin coming to terms with it and preparing for it. Setting up a charging station or installing solar panels on your garage’s roof already might not be exactly the best first step, but thinking about if an electric car is right for you is a great step. You may even find that one of the electric cars on the market right now actually makes sense for you and could be made worthwhile if you make the proper adjustments to your commute and garage. Decking out your garage correctly can mean that you may never need to pay for fuel again, which is a pretty damn exciting idea if you ask me.

Garages And Garage Doors In A Car-Sharing World

2016-02-19T12:01:59-06:00

Companies like Uber and Lyft are changing the game when it comes to car ownership and very well may end up changing the game when it comes to garage ownership as well. Whether it be in a change of how cars are used and operate or where and how many are on roads and out of use there world is definitely leaning away from a world where every family needs two cars in their garage. With the lower cost of mobility afforded with using one car and a budget friendly car sharing service you may find that our nation’s love affair with the car is at a crossroads. This country has always loved the freedom that came with owning a car but it soon may e that owning a car or two cars is not such a reasonable idea. We may also take a bit of time to realize that given how car centered many of our lives are in this country. What this will most likely eventually find us seeing though is an extra space open up in all of our garages as well as perhaps more centralized garages just for car sharing programs. With all of the controversy surrounding these companies at the moment there is a lot of uncertainty in their future and in how they are ousting taxis from cities seemingly. In this article however we will look at how this could affect the garage owner and mean for the average person in the near future. Car ownership will definitely decline, it is practically unavoidable. We most likely won’t see it right away because people are attached to their cars personally in many ways and won't really think to sell them in favor of using a car sharing service right away, however within a few years people’s cars will slowly begin to break down and more and more people will take a look at the numbers and find that perhaps buying another car isn’t the right answer. This will mean that the demise of the two car family will most likely be slow. Car companies will take a hit for sure and may need to do some drastic things to get people to continue buying cars. For people who live near to public transit and urban areas where car sharing will be common it simply won’t make sense to have more than one car for most people unless you really utilize both constantly. This means that over time we will see those two car garages with fewer cars in them. We’ve talked before a bit about how flexible garage space is and with fewer cars in the mix that means much more of that precious garage space will be up for grabs. Garage doors and just the way garages are designed means that garages can be used in a huge amount of ways when given the chance to change. One car in a two car garage means that you have usually slight more than a car’s worth of space to capitalize on that can be used for nearly anything. You can create a new office space with filing cabinets a desk and even a great shipping and receiving area thanks to the garage door. You can also put together a nice home gym if you’d like in order to use that space to get back into shape or save a bit of money on your monthly gym bill. The possibilities for that area are nearly endless really and once you see the positives of what you can do with the space you may even think about chucking your car before others do in order to see some of the benefits faster. The final change we may see is garages popping up in places we may not have seen them before. Garages will be more utilized and more valuable in new places, especially in places where a lot of people need car sharing services. People may leave their cars around the area or away from their home because it will be easier house their car closer to where fares are so that they don’t have to drive when they are not taking a passenger unless they really have to. Again this sort of thing will probably take a few years, but if it happens we may see even less traditional garages being used and more garages taking advantage of city alleyways and those types of areas in order to help people keep their cars in the right places while not having to pay for garage space in the future. Companies may even places these sorts of things all over cities in order to give drivers the opportunity to put their cars in a variety of places should they need to stop anywhere unusual in the city or outside of ti. Car sharing apps have made a huge difference in how we travel. A ride to the airport is no longer the most expensive thing in the world or something that you have to get a good friend to give to you. The costs and ubiquity of the service have made them extremely attractive and so these things have snowballed in a way to become even more usable. As this continues the necessity of having a car in the city has gone down and for families the idea that you need two cars to be able to move around comfortably is no longer true. Uber and Lyft and maybe even other newer companies are going to change how we think about our cars and in turn our garages. Nobody is going to be knocking down garages and garage doors so we will most likely be learning new ways to utilize the space so that it doesn’t go to waste as more and more garages become emptier. We could also see garages becoming less owned privately and more shared similar to the cars in order to help serve the need of car sharing programs in cities and areas with a lot of traffic.

Garages In A Self Driving Car World

2016-02-07T11:46:51-06:00

Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Tesla, what do all of these have in common? They are all companies that seem to be able to be right on the cusp of introducing a car that would change the world and transportation for ever. The Self-driving car is something that has been in science fiction for years and now may be in our near future. What does that mean then for us though? Are our garages going to need an upgrade? How will our lives change? While there are no certainties that this technology will even come it is fun to think about the possibilities. It is exciting to think that your life may change in some unknown way because of your car’s newfound abilities. Now obviously there will be some kinks to work out, and it will take a while before everyone is ready to trust this sort of thing given the power and danger that comes with a car, but we aren’t here to talk about that. This blog is about garages and garage doors in particular so we are going to focus on that end of things. Garages and garage doors have been connected with cars since cars became an American necessity. Separating the two will no doubt take more than simply removing the driver from the equation. Self-driving cars to begin with will most likely be pretty similar to regular cars. You can imagine that many to adopt the technology early will own two cars with one of the cars in their garage being self-driving while the other is of the more traditional variety. This means that in the early days nothing will really change. People will be in their cars when they are driven off and so will be able to handle the tough task of opening their garage door themselves before settling in to a leisurely drive to work while they read the paper. Or at least something similar will happen, maybe people will be working from their car’s in these newly open bits of time. However, it is most likely that those first few things like a garage door may be taken car of by the driver just like fastening a seatbelt and closing car doors would be. It just may not make enough sense to work that kind of thing into the self-driving cars yet because they are still rather finicky to begin with. Next what might happen is you begin seeing cars without drivers. You’ll see garage doors open by themselves and cars drive out. You’ll see garage doors open and cars drive in. At this point we will have the lion’s share of the kinks worked out and opening and closing garage doors will hopefully be moved from the remote and be something that is done securely between the car and your garage door. It will take a bit to make sure that this sort of connection is secure enough to take the control out of a person’s hands, but hopefully we will get there. With the “internet of things” era fast approaching your garage door opener will most likely be linked to the internet giving you access to it’s goings on even if you aren’t home or within the traditional radio distance that most garage door remotes rely on these days. Your smart phone may even give you the ability to circumvent having the garage door opener be programmed into your car and allow you to be prodded anytime your garage door needs to be opened. It may not be the most convenient thing, but you will also be getting a car to pick you up whenever you need it so you won’t be complaining. Finally it will most likely someday come to pass that regular old cars really aren’t that common. People will be zipping about someday in cars that can be at their doorstep at the touch of a button. It’s tough to think of what that world might look like but since it will be coming maybe in less than a century maybe more garages and garage doors will likely still be here. They may not be serving the same purpose, but garages and garage doors serve more purpose than simply protecting your car from things like rough weather and theft. They also keep your home safe from the same. Garages are so flexible that it is likely that the garage may outlast the car. If you know anything about the history of the garage you will know that they started as carriage houses, which is where the look of carriage garage doors come from. That means that the garage was really something that came before the car. Moving the garage to the side of the house was something that likely is a result of the rise of the automobile and the change over from smelly horses, but the similarities are still there. Garages will keep self-driving cars in them safe for a while as people will most likely need their own cars or at least one car for a long time and the garages will still be able to serve that purpose. The almost scary truth of self-driving cars is very likely a few years or short decades a way, with rumors and news articles pointing to sooner rather than later. The thing is however that these things, especially with how expensive they are bound to be, are not going to take over our roads and garages overnight. The process will be slow and gradual and will likely take a number of years even decades. It is tough to say exactly what type of changes will happen because of it but in most cases it seems like our lives may just be a bit easier and more convenient. We may use public transit less, we may move away from cities, or things may stay very much the same. One thing that is almost certain not to change anytime soon though is the popularity of the garage.

Two Car To One Car Garages

2016-02-04T11:44:40-06:00

The majority of garages these days are two car garages. Most families have been two car families for decades. However in some ways the days of needing two cars seem to be dwindling. Carpooling, telecommuting, ride-sharing and even things like uber are becoming extremely common these days and it seems that the age of the two car or more family may not may be around too much longer. We can get by without the cost and hassle of an extra car and it will most likely take a while for families and society to come to grips with this fact, but it is a possibility that in the next decade or so garages will be filled with not two but one car. Then you may thing, what will happen to the garages?! What will become of all those unopened garage doors!? These are the obvious first questions to ask and so we are here to answer them. It may turn out that we’re wrong and two car families continue on for decades and decades, but from today’s point of view it seems that the car is either about to change or be made totally obsolete at least in the way we think of it now. This may not occur tomorrow (it definitely won’t) but a decade or two down the road (pun intended) it is a possibility. With that newfound space and even the excess savings from not owning a second car there is a lot you can do. That extra garage space can be used in a number of ways and what is semi important is that you don’t let it go to waste. You’re paying for or maybe have already paid for the space so you want to get the most out of it. Having one car should open up some great possibilities for you and your family, so in this article we will look at some good ways to use this space. If and when this hypothetically happens the world may be different, but here are just some of our fun ideas. Feel free to comment on what you would do with the space yourself or just to tell us which idea is your favorite. The first way you might want to use that extra space is something a bit more practical and not too exciting but you could use the space as a bike workshop. With the decline of cars and what not maybe you could get into bikes a bit more. Your garage is the perfect spot to house them and work on them and if you have a two car garage and two garage doors you could even still just house them as if you had a car. It would make the transition easy and not cost much money at all. You could even still get some garage door opener remotes for your bikes if you felt like riding in and out without any worries. Another somewhat boring usage of the space could be just for more general storage. Families and even just one person can always use more storage. Your garage makes the perfect spot for storage for a number of reasons as well. Storing things in your garage keeps it close by in the event that you might want something that you nearly never use at a moment’s notice. Garage storage also keeps your things safe from things like any bad weather that might otherwise damage something and it also keeps it safe from intruders. While what you have may not be the most valuable stuff in the world, or even if it is, it is most likely sentimental or at least useful if you deem it worthy of saving and storing. This means that you can be sure that unless something goes terribly wrong you will have some of your necessary items stacked up right next to your only car. The last thing you could use this newfound space for would be a small workspace. Whether you just need a place to call your own so you can get down to business and be productive without leaving the house or you can use it to build those ships in bottles that you always wanted to build. No matter if it’s just a hobby that requires a bit of space or a business that needs a desk and some real live space it can be done in your garage. Having a small separate space is invaluable to escaping from your day to day tasks of keeping your home together and being productive or just relaxing when you need to be. This sort of space can be created with just a little bit of money and that excess space from where you used to keep your car. The best part is if it gets nice some days or if your hobby requires you can even open up your garage door. One car families may not be right around the corner for most of America, but it is true that for some the idea may work and be more viable in the near future. With all the benefits of just owning one car there also comes the bonus of freeing up a bit of space in your garage for nearly anything you could want. Whether you use your excess garage space to run a business that grows taller than you could imagine or whether you just use it to paint on Sunday afternoons is all up to you. There are almost infinite possibilities for the space so don’t let them go to waste. Even if we live long enough for cars to become a thing of the past we will certainly be able to use and find new uses for our garages that will have us thankful that we have them. Again, let us know which thing you would choose for your new open garage. Would it be a cycling work shop to help you get around and stay fit? Maybe that extra bit of storage to keep sentimental items nearby? Or are you the type that wants an open air office to keep them focused on breezy days?

Garage Does Double Duty

2016-02-02T11:41:11-06:00

Your garage and garage door most likely keep your car safe and stored so that you don’t have to worry about it while you sleep at night or while you are out with your other car. The car has been a part of the American persona for decades and we most likely won’t be breaking that bond anytime soon. We use our cars every day and so we also to some extent use our garages and garage door openers every day. Your garage however does more than just keep your car safe. In fact for most home owners that is just one side of things. It does far more than keep your car safe from he weather, intruders, etc. Your garage gives you a space to work, play and bridge the gap between the outdoors and the indoors. For whatever reason we often find ourselves using our garages when we are torn between doing something inside and outside so turn to the garage do try ad do both. your garage is most likely doing double duty and you haven’t even noticed that you only really realize that it is doing both jobs incredibly well for really one main reason. The garage door is helping to turn your garage from a car storage room into a room that helps you deal with things that belong neither inside nor outside. How does your garage do it though? What makes the space just so flexible and utilitarian? The answer is a few things really, but the first and in many ways most important tool in getting your garage to do double duty in your home is the garage door. The garage door allows things to move in and out of your garage in a quick and convenient way which allows you to move your car or cars out and something else in with really an astounding amount of ease. This means that if you are doing something like painting a door, cutting wood or really doing any sort of labor that might cause a mess that you could remove your cars from the garage and easily have the perfect place to do all of these things. You don’t need a dedicated workshop space if you only do this sort of thing every so often which makes your garage the perfect spot to do these things. Opening your garage door means that you get the airflow needed to make sawdust or paint fumes not much of a problem even if the weather would make them a problem. Just because it is raining or something doesn’t mean that you need to be affected. Another reason that garages work for all these sorts of things is because of how they are commonly built and designed. By that I mean the way the floors are built. Your average garage has a concrete or cement floor that can stand up to a whole lot of punishment and doesn’t really need to look too pristine to be presentable. This makes it the perfect spot to do all of the things that my not be the cleanest things because you don’t have to worry about being too messy, as long as you move the cars out. This means that your garage can work not only as your cars’ storage room but also things like your kids’ fingerprinting studio, your carpenter’s workshop and your gardening prep area all at different times with ease. Your garage then just needs a rinse down at most and you can bring your cars back in and things will be back to normal. The floor makes everything temporary and easy to change so if you ever feel that you need a place to do whatever, try out your garage if you haven’t already and you will be surprised at how easy it makes things. The last thing that makes your garage such a great place to do pretty much anything is the layout. Most garage spaces are just large rooms with nothing in them besides maybe a small wall to separate your garage doors or perhaps a pole or two to keep the rough up. That is it, that is what lets you use the space however you like. The cars tend to take up enough of the area that when they aren’t there there isn’t a whole lot of furniture or anything else to get in the way. This means that if you are having a family party your garage quickly turns into a dining room for overflow, of if you are doing some work on your house the garage turns into your workshop, etc. Moving things in and out of your garage is simple when you don’t have much to move and have an easy way to move it all, through the garage door. Your garage is probably thought of in your home as the place where you keep your cars. It isn’t a bad description of the space but it does definitely categorize it ineffectively a bit. Your garage is a car storage place most of the time, but can be and should be adapted to fit other needs that crop up from time to time. If you are going to be spending your time doing something messy then there is no reason that you shouldn’t move your cars out of your garage and open up your garage door in order to utilize the space. It is almost like no matter what you need to do if you only need a space for a short period of time and looks aren’t really important then there is no reason you need more than your garage for the job. Your garage can fill in for nearly any need which would otherwise require a full room with the right furniture or lack there of. With a simply cleaning and moving your car back in however the garage goes back to normal in no time at all.

Repurposing A Garage Door

2016-01-29T02:13:06-06:00

When it comes to garage doors there is a lot of time between buying a new one and that new one needing to be replaced. If you take care of it correctly, have a good quality garage door and have good luck with no accidents concerning your garage door your next new garage door might be 15-20 years away. This means that when you are first looking at a new garage door you are most likely not thinking about what you will do with it when its done. You are instead thinking about the price of your garage door, the energy savings of different garage doors and the durability of your garage door. Most likely the last thing you are really thinking about is what you plan to do with your garage door when it is no longer fit to serve as your garage door. For that reason this article is here to give you some ideas. Garage doors can be a great resource, and with all the talk about people recycling and up cycling their appliances and other things they no longer need why not get your garage door in on the fun? Maybe this article won’t rival your average pinterest board’s worth of ideas, but nonetheless hopefully it will get the restive juices flowing for you. And if you have already gotten to the point where you nearly discarded your own garage door but found a better use for it feel free to let us know some of your ideas and how they ended up coming out. Especially feel free to share pictures of some of the crazy things you’ve built or done with your old garage doors. The first idea for your old garage door is to use it to build a table! The flat surface and potential flexibility of the garage door (if it was paneled) can make a great stand in table with just a few adjustments. You may need to rework the hinges and repaint or sand any parts that have gotten scuffed up of the years, but without too much work at all you could have a perfect outdoor table for all your garden parties and backyard barbecues. It may not be the fanciest table you see, but it will be a great way to show your handiwork and resourcefulness at being able to turn something as ordinary as a garage door into something you gather around for years to come. Another thing you can do (only with wooden garage doors) is throw them in the wood chipper. If there is no paint on them or the paint is not bad for the environment then there is no reason that you can’t take off the hinges or take out any metal parts and use the old wood to mulch your garden in the coming year or to help light fires in winter, etc. All that wood won’t be going to waste if you have a use for a garage door’s worth of wood chips and plus you’ll have the fun of breaking down your old garage door into yet another useful thing. For the steel and aluminum garage doors out there you may not want to use a wood chipper, but you might try and take the welding torch to them. Let your creative side out and get to sculpting some beautiful junkyard style stuff with your old garage door. You’ll have lots of material to used and might even turn it into something worth tons of money. You also might just turn it into a pile of melted and cut metal, but then again you’ll never know until you try and you’ve really got nothing to lose. Metal sculptures are all the rage so why not make christmas presents for the whole family out of your garage door this year or just create a sculpture for yourself with the dented garage door panels you have left. Either way you’ll be doing something productive with it all and in the end if it ends up not being worthwhile you can still recycle it. The last thing you can do with your old garage door is just recycle it. It may seem boring compared to the others, but it is certainly easier in many respects. Recycling your garage door will have it out of the way quickly and can even be done without lifting a finger if you get the garage door professionals who are installing your new garage door to take it away. Otherwise you may need to check your towns calendars and guidelines on disposing of garage doors, but it will still probably be faster and easier than throwing it in the woodchopper or learning how to weld. There are tons of things that you can do with your garage door once it is no longer being used to keep your garage off limits. The possibilities are nearly endless and you surely have some ideas of your own. Feel free to share them in the comments and remember to be safe when operating those welding tools and the wood chipper. If you are still on the tamer side of things also remember there is no shame in recycling your garage door instead of turning it into an avant-garde sculpture. In fact its quite a bit easier and may even end up saving you a lot of hassle if you go through your local garage door professional and have them take it away when they bring and install your new garage door.

How To Recycle A Garage Door

2016-01-26T02:10:42-06:00

If you are like most these days you have noticed that just about everyone is talking about our impact on the environment, climate change, being green, etc. It is of course important to make sure that we aren’t ruining our planet for the generations to come or even our generation, so when it comes getting rid of appliances most cities, states or municipalities have certain guidelines set in place to make sure that our backyards and the sides of our streets aren’t just littered with the appliances of days passed. What happens to these appliances tends to vary on when they were made, how valuable they are and the materials they were made of. When it comes to garage doors nearly all of them can be recycled. The problem is knowing which things are recyclable and which things might even get you some money in the end. That’s right, you may even able to make a bit of money off of that old garage door while you help “save the earth”. Whether it is worth the hassle of course is up to you. Regardless of whether you end up getting paid for doing your good deed or your just put the materials in the right hands to be reused, garage door recycling you should at least know the merits of. Fiberglass is the newest material that garage doors are going to be made out of and so as you might expect it is much harder to recycle. In fact there is currently only one company which is supposedly equipped to properly recycle something like a fiberglass garage door. This doesn’t mean you should chuck it to the curb when you are done with it, but most likely it will be going somewhere that it won’t be reused. Fiberglass does last a long time so the benefits of a fiberglass garage door may outweigh the fact that it cannot be recycled for some. If you are more earth conscious however it is best to go for another material from the get go. Aluminum garage doors are going to be much easier to find a place for. The quality of the aluminum in garage doors in fact is good enough in the more expensive aluminum garage doors to actually warrant some reward for its recycling in some places. The tough part for most will be trying to find a place nearby that will recycle and pay for such a large piece of metal and the problem of transportation. In most cases you will need to bring the garage door to them in order to get any money out of the deal. If you are still interested then look around for local recycling centers that pay and find a way to get your old garage door there. Otherwise you may have to settle for just knowing that your garage door is going to a good cause somewhere out there. If that is the case then you can most likely let the city pick it up, the dump or your garage door professional may even haul it away for you when it gets replaced. Wooden garage doors in many cases are already made from some portion of recycled wood. This means that from the start you have already done the eco-friendly thing by going with a responsibly sourced wooden garage door. Depending on if the wood has been treated with harmful chemicals really dictates what you should do with it once you find yourself replacing a wooden garage door. If you have got a relatively safe wooden garage door then you can use the garage door for some household projects, throw them in the wood chipper and more. If they are treated with some chemicals you would rather not have let loose on the world then you will most likely have to take them to a nearby dump and let them deal with them. Steel garage doors are very similar to your aluminum garage doors. They can often be recycled and melted down for a fair bit of money if there is enough to them and the steel is still in good enough shape. If not then the garage door may need to simply be taken to your local dump or left for the city to come and collect. The same problem goes for the steel garage door as goes for the aluminum garage door. Transportation and the hassle of finding a place to get some money for your garage door may far outweigh the amount of money that you end up getting however if you are looking to get the most bang for your buck you can do some research and find out how much you may be able to get for your garage door and make that sort of decision for yourself. If you don’t want to deal with the recycling of your garage door yourself you can certainly set something tup with most garage door professionals so that they will take the old garage door away as a part of your installation of a new garage door. For many this is the best route to go because it means that your “new garage door installation” doesn’t drag on for weeks as you wait for the days that the local dump accepts things like garage doors or for when the town comes to collect hard metal like a garage door. The days that your garage door might get picked up, along with the hassle of possibly needing to transport your garage door makes the whole process somewhat of a hassle. This however makes the option of having it all dealt with for you an attractive option as you save time and maybe even money in order to do the “earth conscious thing” so that you can not only feel good about your new garage door, but you can feel good about your old garage door.

Garage Doors And Home Security

2016-01-23T02:09:23-06:00

One of the reasons that we choose to have our cars stored in the garage is for security purposes. Your car is most likely one of your larger investments and so is worth a bit of security around it. You also rely on your garage door to provide security for more than just your garage’s items, but for your home. The automatic garage door opener originally was just about helping home owners get in and out of their garages more easily, but today they are about much more than that. Today garage door openers and garage doors in fact play a large part in how we secure our homes from unwanted visitors and intruders. It is no surprise that as the holidays grow nearer the amount of burglaries go up. However sad that may seem it is nonetheless important to keep your home safe from intruders of the not so jolly variety and keep your family safe. You may be wondering then what you can do as a home owner to keep you and your family safe, with regards to your garage door of course. That is where you are in luck, this article is going to be all about improving your home’s security in ways that are directly associated with the garage. The first big tip for all you garage door owners out there is to close your garage door. It is the simplest little thing you can do that will have the biggest effect on your security. All the fancy locks and fail safes of your garage door opener and garage door may work extremely well, but if you can’t remember to close your garage door when you leave or when you are in bed, etc. Then your garage door will do you no good from a security standpoint or really any stand point. Like all doors you are really only getting anything out of it when it is closed, so make sure that it becomes second nature to close your garage door after you get home or leave your home so that your garage door spends the minimum amount of time it can open. It may seem like a silly tip, but it really is the best one there is. Nothing screams vulnerable security like a garage door that is wide open, especially because an open garage door is so visible from the street making it practically an advertisement for those who you shouldn’t be advertising to. Now that you have it etched into your mind that you should always have your garage door closed if you aren’t directly using it we can move on to somewhat more serious tips. The first real tip that isn’t essential a how to on doors is to make sure that your key code is actually something good. Far too often people’s passwords and codes are things like their birthdays or a part of their phone number or an anniversary. These are extremely easy to figure out and some of the first things that somebody will try out if they have studied up on you or even worse are someone that you actually know. In any case most of these things are just a few google searches away for potential intruders, so try to think of something harder than your anniversary or your kid’s birthday. Things that you would know but others wouldn’t are always good especially things like nonsense words or names put into numbers. Depending on if you have kids and their ages you may need go with simpler ideas, but nonetheless make sure that if someone wasn’t in your immediate family that they would have trouble guessing your key code. Of course in the same vein as the key code’s actual make up is the use of the key code. Try not to give out your key code to every person that needs to get into your house for a day to water your plants or for that one week of your vacation. While you most likely trust the people that you give the key code to there is the possibility that one of those days that they are supposed to walk your dog they can’t do it and instead send a friend to do it for you. This means that somebody you may not even know or know about has access to your garage door and the rest of your house if your door is unlocked most of the time. While people’s intentions may have been good this means that your garage door’s key code may spread to unsavory characters without you ever knowing it. The easiest way to avoid this is to give out keys. Keys take a pretty big hassle to copy and will most likely stay in the hands of the people you trust for the most part. Another way to keep your garage door secure is to change your key code every so often. It doesn’t need to change weekly to an arbitrary 8-digit number, but it should change every year or two just to keep people you may have forgotten about from still having access to your garage. It may seem like an unnecessary measure, and hopefully it is, but it is far easier to look back on all of the attempted break ins you didn’t have than to lament those that you did. Garage doors are now an everyday part of our lives and a part of our homes’ security. While it may seem like an inch or two of metal or wood doesn’t bring you too much security when it comes to your home it is important to remember that dissuading intruders is really half the battle of home security. The other half of course is the actual use of your home’s security system. Your takeaway from this article then should be to make sure that your door is always closed to dissuade intruders and to keep your key code hard to guess and out of the wrong hands.

When Garage Door Springs Break

2016-01-21T02:08:13-06:00

You are sitting home one day and you hear a large cracking sound. After some confusion, a small dose of fear and some investigation you go on to find out that the culprit is none other than one of your garage door springs breaking. So what do you do when your garage door spring breaks? it can be quite a confusing when it first happens as the sound can be pretty alarming and isn’t immediately evident as something that would happen in your garage, but after you have your head around the idea that it indeed come from your garage door then you can start to figure out what you should be doing about it. Garage door springs can break even when they are not being used, which is probably the safest time for them to snap. However this does not mean that this is incredibly safe still. In this article we will go through a few of the things you should do if and when your garage door spring breaks. As the weather gets colder garage door springs are more and more prone to break so don’t be too alarmed if it happens to you. The first thing you should do when you hear that loud crack is to investigate. You won’t know that it was your garage door until you see the broken spring so it is best to be sure that your garage door is the culprit. Once you are sure that you are dealing with a broken spring there are a few things that need to be done. The next thing that you will most likely want to do is test to see if your garage door opener still works. It won’t. The garage door will feel a hundred times heavier and so using your garage door opener will only risk breaking that on top of your garage door spring. Instead just let the garage door opener sit this out for a while until your garage door springs are replaced. The first thing that you will actually want to do after you are sure that your garage door spring is broken is to call somebody to get it replaced. Many times the wait won’t be too long and you will be able to get your garage door spring replaced the same day as when it broke. if your lucky the inconvenience will be relatively minor and your life and garage door opening days will be back to normal in no time at all. You may however not be able to simply wait around for your garage door spring to get replaced. Many of us don’t just have the luxury of not going into work for a few hours because our car is unavailable. What you can do then, though it isn’t recommended, is open up your garage door without the help of your garage door or your garage door springs. However you should be warned that without the help of your garage door springs the garage door will be a ton heavier than normal and you may need some help to get it up. You will also need to disengage the door from the garage door opener in order to be able to manually operate it. After you have gotten your garage door up and your car out then you will want to stop using the garage door until it has been fixed. This may mean getting out all of your cars at the same time or keeping your cars in the driveway for a few days. While this may seem like a hassle and like it defeats the purpose of having a garage in the first place it is much better to have your garage door spring replaced before something truly dangerous happens. Your cars will most likely be back in your garage in no time and you will be thankful that they didn’t get damaged by opening and closing the garage door manually a number of times. Once all of your cars are out of your garage it is also important to close your garage door again. This may take some help as the garage door will still be much heavier than you are used to it being, so make sure to have a few people help you with the task if you can. This will keep the garage door from coming down unexpectedly and damaging itself or anyone in the process. That’s pretty much all you need to know about how to deal with a garage door spring snapping on you. If you don’t want to deal with the trouble and want to simply play things on the safe side it is really a two step process. You will investigate your garage and make a call to get somebody to repair your garage door and in no time you will be back to using your garage door everyday as normal. This however means that you may not have access to your car for a day which means that you will need to get a ride from a coworker, family member or ride service. While this may be an inconvenience for some it will actually end up costing others a small amount of money, on top of the price of a new garage door spring. This is why the other approach is also popular. You can investigate, call a garage door professional and then choose to take matters into your own hands in some respects. This means getting a friend or neighbor over (one who could probably also give you a lift somewhere) so help you lift your garage door and get your car out.