Is your Roller Garage Door Safe?
Insulated Roller Garage Doors
Earlier last year we put an article on our website explaining the basics of why so many insulated aluminium roller garage doors varied so much in price. One of the biggest concerns this year is the rise in the number of roller garage doors coming onto the UK market that quite simply put are ‘illegal’ and not compliant with regulations in the UK.
We saw terrible accidents last year involving electric sliding gates without the correct safety devices in place, and it looks like potentially some roller garage doors are no different in that the basic requirements to ensure a safe door installation are being ignored in favour of chasing lower prices to gain a piece of market share.
Put simply, if you are looking to buy a remote control electric operated roller shutter garage door in the near future, just look out for two types of safety devices being used to ensure you have a compliant and legal product installed on your home, or indeed business, as the same rules apply to commercial roller doors.
Make sure the roller door has either:
1. Bottom leading edge safety detector to stop the door at any point during travel by sensing an obstruction after contact and reversing.
2. Automatic sensing through instant detection of a power surge after contact with an obstacle by the use of a 24V DC electric motor system where technology enables this, currently only used by Hormann, Gliderol steel roller doors and Garage Door Systems of Ireland. These are externally fitted motors unlike the tubular motors of the majority of insulated roller garage doors.
DO NOT CONSIDER:
- Infra red beams as the only safety feature even if there are multiple beams involved, they do not comply!!
- No safety at all and remote control operation. No safety is considered acceptable if the door is on view of a ‘hold to run’ pushbutton control where the user has to physically hold the button in to drive the roller door down to close.
- Other compliancy regulations apply over and above the basics for other reasons, for example if the door is next to a public area (path or road) or if the door is below a certain height a full box may be recommended for example to prevent finger entrapment.
If you have any concerns or queries on the safety features of roller doors or indeed other types of garage doors please do contact us either by phone or email.
