Safety Tips for the Garage

You have taken special care to be sure that your home is safe. If you have small children, you’ve childproofed the electrical outlets. If you have older children, you’ve discussed Internet safety and might have installed a filter to block objectionable material. You likely have used baby gates, screened babysitters, and are careful when you use a ladder. Undoubtedly, safety is important. Many times, however, safety issues in the garage are unintentionally overlooked, because the area is not seen as an actual room that your family lives in. Here is a list of things to double check to be sure that your garage is as safe as possible:

Check your garage door

A malfunctioning garage door can be a huge safety hazard: Young kids and pets can be crushed if the door fails to open immediately upon meeting resistance. Here is an easy test: Open the garage door, then place a roll of paper towels where the door could crush it. Use the automatic garage opener to close the door, and see what happens. If the door does not go back up after hitting the paper towels, then you must contact a professional to fix the problem. It could be that the sensor is broken or not calibrated correctly. Either way, if the door can crush a roll of paper towels, it could also crush a child or pet, so get that remedied right away.

Remember the basics of childproofing

Even if you don’t have small children, a neighbor’s child might wander into your garage if you leave the door open, even just to go into the house to eat lunch while working on a project. Take some time to lock up all poisons and to store sharp or otherwise dangerous items correctly. Store ladders horizontally instead of standing up, because a ladder left leaned up against a wall is an invitation for a child to climb on it. Unplug and put away power tools any time you leave the garage at all. It might seem like an extra hassle, but this could literally save a life.

Protect your family from fire and carbon monoxide

When you change the batteries in the smoke detectors inside of the house, change the ones in the garage as well. A fire that starts in the garage could rapidly consume a house, so you need a detector out there, preferably hard-wired. Even on the coldest days, back the car into the driveway if you let it run while warming up. Just opening the garage door is not enough to keep potentially fatal carbon monoxide from building up inside of your garage. Install a carbon monoxide detector in your garage as well as in every sleeping area of your home.

Keep the floor clean and uncluttered

Garage floors have to put up with spills; that’s a given. It’s important to clean them up right away, though. Leaving the floor wet with slippery fluids or small pieces like birdseed or a box of nails can cause a fall on the hard cement. Also, while our garages are great storage areas, it’s important to keep those piles neat and tidy. Climbing over clutter could lead to a painful bruise — or worse — should you lose your balance.