Summer thunderstorms may be thrilling to witness but are capable of great damage. Hail, rain, high winds, tornadoes, and lightning possess a deadly beauty that can place you and your home at risk.
As an important gateway into your home, your garage door can be a target during a thunderstorm that threatens the safety of your loved ones. Learn three shocking truths about thunderstorms and your garage door.
1. Lightning Can Damage Electronic Door Openers
One thrilling component of thunderstorms is lightning strikes. But your home does not need to suffer a direct hit for an electronic garage door opener to receive damage. Unfortunately, enormous electrical charges from a nearby strike can enter via plumbing pipes or electrical wiring that extends out of your home.
Like many household electronics such as computers and televisions, electronic garage door openers contain delicate circuitry that a huge voltage surge easily overloads. An opener with lightning damage will not operate properly despite a working power supply. The door will not open or shut via remotes or at the main on/off switch.
2. Power Outages Mean Garage Doors Will Not Operate
Especially severe thunderstorms often disrupt electrical power to your home, your street, and even an entire neighborhood or city. Your power may be off for hours as power crews wait for a storm to cease before repairs can begin. Lights, appliances, and other electrical necessities in your home are temporarily useless.
As your family grapples with new ways to see in the dark during a power outage, a garage door opener remains silent and inoperative. Fortunately, most openers have manual override options like a handle, lever, or rope that allow you to open and close the door from inside the garage. However, you will be unable to open and close the garage door from outside the home with a remote opener.
Many homeowners opt for a garage door opener with a battery backup that allows you to continue to easily open and close your garage door during a power outage.
3. High Winds and Rain Can Damage or Breach a Garage Door
Tornadoes are more common in the spring and early summer, but occasionally a twister forms during other times during the year. High winds and hail prevalent with tornadic weather can cause considerable damage to your home. Garage doors are especially susceptible because they are lightweight and very lengthy in shape.
Raynor Door Company provides a wide range of residential garage door models that meet the demands of the most rigorous wind load or impact rating guidelines. In addition, impact and wind load rated windows made from tough lightweight polycarbonate material that is durable, UV and scratch resistant, and housed in a colonial sized extruded aluminum frame, are available as an optional add-on. These garage doors have been tested and approved by the Florida Building Code (FBC), the Miami-Dade building code, and the Texas Department of Insurance.
Floods may be equally destructive after heavy, unexpected downpours suddenly introduce too much water onto a sloped driveway. Water then enters a garage when insufficient weather seal stripping along the bottom of the door cannot perform. If your home is in a flood-prone area, ripped, loose, and missing seals may spell disaster for your home.
Don’t let summer thunderstorms have a negative impact on your home, garage door, and electric opener. Contact the professionals at Raynor Door Company before the next storm. We have garage door openers with a battery backup to give your family peace of mind when the thunder rolls.