Is Your Garage Bushfire Ready?

Why The Garage Door Opener Should Be Part Of Every Home’s Bushfire Survival Plan

With the summer weather now upon us, every household in bushfire-prone areas should be thinking about their bushfire survival plan.

If you keep your car in the garage, your garage door opener should be included in your bushfire survival plan to ensure that if you do have to evacuate, you can do so easily and with as little stress as possible.

Start by checking to see if your garage door is equipped with a manual release cord and a back-up battery system.

Homeowners should familiarise themselves with the manual release cord’s location, how to use it and ensure that it is in good working order – it shouldn’t be frayed and should still have the plastic handle at the end of the cord.

While most automated garage doors can be manually opened in the event of a power failure using the manual release cord to disconnect the door, it’s an added and unnecessary stress that homeowners don’t need in an emergency situation.

In a power failure, both Merlin’s WhisperDrive for sectional doors and SilentDrive BBU for roller doors can be opened using a manual release cord and have back-up battery systems to ensure that you can safely access your garage, even when there’s a power failure.

Regular maintenance of your garage door opener is the second part of your survival plan.

Undertaking a quick reversal test and looking for signs of wear and tear each month will allow you to be confident that your garage door is working at its best, at all times.

To be bushfire safe this season:

• Conduct a monthly safety reversal test: Test the garage door’s reversing mechanism every month by placing a solid object, such as a block of wood, 40mm above the base of the garage door’s path and setting it to close. If the door doesn’t reverse in less than a second (0.75 second) when it touches the object, Merlin recommends calling a professional dealer to assess it.
• Install a back-up battery system: Merlin’s WhisperDrive for sectional doors and SilentDrive BBU for roller doors both include back-up battery systems to ensure that homeowners can safely access their garage, even when there’s a power failure.
• Know your door’s safety features: Learn all the safety features of your automated garage door and read the instructions for how to manually open it in case of an emergency or power failure.

Be safe this bushfire season and make your garage door opener, and its upkeep, part of your survival plan.

For information contact Merlin on 1800 MERLIN.

Click here for more information on Merlin’s WhisperDrive

Click here for more information on Merlin’s SilentDrive BBU