Among the most important parts of homes today are the residential garage doors. Garage doors are not only used as a decorative piece for the exterior of the home but they also serve as one of the security defences of the property against burglars and intruders.

In order to maximize the use of the garage door, there are modern accessories that can be bought to help homeowners. It is important to know that these garage door accessories are not mandatory during the purchase of the fixture but these can be suggested by the salesman.

• Garage Motion Detector. If you have an automatic garage door opener, a garage motion detector will be very useful. Automatic openers will close and open the door immediately once the button is pressed. If there is a person right on the track where the door will close, he could get hurt. Modern garage motion detectors will check if the door lines are clear so that the garage door can lower safely. This gadget will be most useful for families with kids too.

• Door Opener Lightning Suppressor. For those people who live in areas that are prone to thunderstorms, making sure that lighting surges would not affect the gadgets of the house is necessary. With the use of a door opener lightning suppressor kit, the chances of having lightning destroy or short circuit your door opener will be greatly reduced.

Garage Door Light Bulbs. When it comes to garage lighting especially the bulbs that are situated near the door or the door opener, it will be necessary to purchase those that are heavy duty. This is because the vibrations of the opening and the closing operations of the door will cause normal light bulbs to crack or explode. Heavy duty bulbs will ensure longer lasting life and reduced burnouts.

When people start talking about going green and being more aware of the environment, the last thing that would come into their minds is the importance and the effects of replacing residential garage doors and other doors in the house.

The doors play a very important role in keeping the home environment friendly because properly insulated doors can help lessen the usage of the heater or cooler inside the home. In addition to that, there are also other important features of doors that contribute to their greenness.

With the help of these guidelines, consumers can make a sound decision about replacing their old garage doors to help the environment in their own ways.

• Insulation. As mentioned earlier, the insulation of the garage door can help retain heat inside the garage space. This is extremely important especially if the garage door is sitting right below a bedroom. Although most garage doors sold today are insulated, consumers like you should take the time to check the R-value of the door’s insulation. The recommended value is R-18.

• Recyclable Material. If you want a green door, the insulation is not everything that you should look at. You should also take a look at the type of material that the door is made of. Although wooden doors are biodegradable, you can also opt for steel doors whose manufacturers proactively advertise their efforts in recycling any scrap metals during the manufacturing process. There are also wooden doors that have been made out of recycled wooden fibers.

• Coating. Although the garage door installation process does not affect the greenness of the garage door, the method on how the door was painted, how the overflow of paint is being handled by the manufacturers, and the type of paint that is used can generally dictate if the door is classified as environment friendly or not.

The garage door opener is probably one of the more important devices that you will purchase for your home. Door openers are responsible for the automatic opening and closing of your garage doors. And since garage doors are extremely heavy, they make the job very easy for humans.

Most garage openers today are controlled through a wireless remote control wherein a simple push of a button can open or close the door. Unfortunately, the signals sent by the remote to the door opener can be affected by a lot of factors thus decreasing the reception of the device.

Luckily, homeowners can do their own troubleshooting so that the range of the garage opener can be maximized.

• Check the Batteries. One of the most common reasons why the garage opener isn’t quite responding is because the batteries are already low on power and they have to be replaced. The main unit of the garage opener is powered by an electrical line. The batteries that you need to replace are those that are found on the remote control. Make sure you know what size and how many pieces are needed so you could replace them immediately.

• Read the Manual. There are some specific units of door openers that only have a short range of reception according to their manufacturers. So, you need to know how many meters away from residential garage doors openers you can operate your remote for the door opener to respond.

• Avoid interfering signals. In some cases, the signal and frequency from the radio in your car can interfere with the frequency of the garage opener. To avoid these frequencies from getting confused with each other, you can raise the door opener above your head level before pressing the button so that it would be more aligned with the motor antenna.

No one can contest the fact that garage door openers are really important pieces of equipment in the home since they are able to control and lock the garage doors of the house.

Unfortunately, when the garagedooropener is not maintained or installed properly, it could create weird vibrations and noises that could be disturbing to the family. If the door opener is starting to become noisy, here are the essential things that you must do:

• Check all nuts and bolts to see if there are any loose pieces. One of the reasons why the door and the door opener create sounds during their operation is because the parts are loosely installed. What you need to do to solve this is to tighten all bolts and nuts and lubricate these parts as soon as they are tightened.

• Replace the rollers that have worn out. When garage door rollers are damaged or worn out, they wobble as the door is being opened or closed which leads to vibrations and sounds. You need to replace the rollers that have been broken. There is a new trend today where nylon rollers are used instead of steel rollers because they require less lubrication and they are quieter but they are also more expensive.

• Lubricate the tracks of the opener. Lubricating the track and all the movable parts will ensure swift operation and will cause less friction too.

• Isolate the door opener through anti-vibration pads. Anti-vibration pads are actually rubber pads that you can insert between the door opener and the ceiling of your garage so that the rubber can absorb the vibrations that the opener will make whenever the entrydoors are being opened or closed. These will also be very helpful especially if the garage is found right under a bedroom since these pads can reduce noise inside the room.