In life, there are lots of milestones that seem to change everything. Your first step. Your first day at school. Your first kiss. Your first car. The car is easily the largest milestone of all. It represents responsibility, mobility, freedom, and the increased ability to get a date.
Once you get a car, a few other things come into play. You need to fuel it, keep it in running condition, service it every few months, maintain it in a status that matches your lifestyle, and find a safe place to keep it when you’re not driving.
In the past, car safety wasn’t such a big issue. You could leave the car in your driveway and it would be fine. Nowadays, you’d prefer your car to be locked in an indoor garage, and it presented an annoying new challenge. It meant when you got home from a drive, you’d have to get out of the car, open the garage, drive the car into it, then get out of the car and close the garage door behind you.
That was then. Now, you can do all those steps at the touch of a button. In 1926, a man named C. G. Johnson invented the electric garage door opener. This handy little device allows you to press a button that opens your garage so you can easily drive in.
The science behind why exactly the garage door works is fascinating. That one tiny button can move a piece of wood or metal that weighs 200 pounds. Well, the trick isn’t in the mass of the door, or even in the size of the button. It’s all about pulleys and shutters. A system of rollers counterbalances the weight of the door, allowing it to swing open or shut. These rollers are powered by electricity.
Garage door rollers have revolutionised car ownership in several different ways. We have already discussed the first and possibly most important benefit. Garage doors improve the security of both your car and your home. Many homes have a side door inside the garage that leads into the main house. By securing the garage, you are keeping the house tightly locked by extension. And, of course, your car is safer in a locked garage than it is in an open driveway.
The second benefit is still related to protecting your car, but this time, we’re not thinking about thieves and vandals. Cars, for all their polish and shine, are still made of metal. And metal is susceptible to weather damage. Exposed parts can rust. Paintwork can get damaged by dirt, debris, and idle children with sharp toys. Keeping your car inside a locked garage can keep it safe from weather damage, and from bored neighbourhood kids.
When you’re away from home for a long period of time, you might get a house-sitter to keep your home safe. Even if you don’t have a live-in sitter, you could ask a friend to swing by every once in awhile and see if everything is as it should be. However, you might want some additional protection for your car.
The best solution is to use the holiday function on your garage door roller. It increases the functionality of the garage door but putting it into a kind of hibernation mode, shutting down some buttons and redirecting access to a control panel inside the house. Effectively, the only way to open the garage door would be to get inside the house and open it from there.
Of course, this means your house-sitter can now access your car, but I suppose if your trust then with your home, then your car is safe with them too. But in case you don’t have someone to periodically check on your house, then your car will be safe in vacation mode. Electric garage doors are quite energy efficient, and they’re environmentally friendly too.