The History of Garage Doors: From Carriage Houses to Modern Innovations
2026-04-12
Planning a Garage Sale? Things To Be Mindful Of With Your Garage Door
Garage sales are practically a Michigan tradition — especially once the weather finally cooperates. You've priced everything, pulled it out of storage, and set your alarm for Saturday morning. But there's one thing most people never think about before a sale: the garage door itself.
When you host a garage sale, your garage door takes on a job it wasn't really designed for. It's propped open from 7am until whenever the last bargain hunter finally leaves — and a lot can go wrong in the meantime. Here's what to watch for.
Someone Will Bump Your Safety Sensors
It's basically guaranteed. You've got people crouching down to look at boxes on the floor, kids weaving through, folding tables getting shuffled around — and those little sensors mounted a few inches off the ground on either side of your door? They're right in the middle of all of it.
When a safety sensor gets knocked even slightly out of alignment, your door won't close. Or it'll start to close and immediately reverse back up. Most people assume something is broken. Usually, it's just a nudged sensor.
If your door acts up at the end of the sale, check the sensors first. They should each have a solid light — no blinking. Gently realign them so they're pointing directly at each other, and the problem usually resolves itself in about thirty seconds.
Closing the Door on Something Is More Damaging Than You'd Think
It happens fast. Someone sets a box too close to the door, you hit the button without looking, and the door comes down on something sitting in the opening. Most of the time the door reverses — that's what the sensors are for. But the sensors only detect what's in the beam path near the floor. A broom handle tipped into the track, a bike handlebar leaning against the door, a folding table leg sitting just inside the opening — none of those will trigger a reversal, and the door will come down on them with full force.
One of the more common results is a cable coming off the drum. The cables on your garage door are what keep tension balanced as the door moves. When the door hits an unexpected obstruction and the mechanism keeps running, those cables can jump the drum and go slack. A door with a cable off the drum shouldn't be operated — it can come down unevenly and cause real damage or injury.
The easy prevention: before you close up at the end of the sale, do a quick walk-through of the door opening and make sure nothing is sitting in the path of the door.
If Your Springs Are Weak, a Full Day Is Hard on Your Opener
Here's something most people don't know: your garage door opener isn't really what holds the door up. The springs do most of that work. The opener is just there to guide the movement. When the springs are worn or losing tension, the opener has to compensate — and holding a heavy door in the raised position for hours puts real strain on a motor that isn't meant to carry that load.
A full day of garage sale traffic with a weak spring setup is the kind of thing that can push an aging opener closer to failure.
The good news is there's a simple test you can do before your sale to find out where your springs stand.
The Balance Test (Do This Before Your Sale)
- Close the garage door all the way.
- Pull the red emergency release cord to disconnect the door from the opener.
- Manually lift the door to about waist height and let go.
A properly balanced door will stay right where you put it, or drift very slowly. If it shoots up on its own, the springs have too much tension. If it falls back down, they don't have enough — and your opener has been doing extra work every single time you use it.
If the door won't stay put, it's worth having the springs looked at before summer garage sale season kicks into gear. It's one of those things that's easy to ignore until it isn't.
A Few More Quick Tips
Lock your wall button if it has that feature. Many modern wall-mounted garage door buttons have a lock mode that disables the wall button while it's active. If yours has it, use it on sale day. It takes one press to activate and prevents a curious kid — or an accidental bump — from sending the door down while someone's standing in the opening.
Close it at night before you count your cash. It sounds obvious, but after a long sale day it's easy to forget. A garage door left open overnight is an invitation — especially with leftover items still visible inside.
We hope your garage sale goes great! If you're in Central Michigan and your door is acting up before or after — give us a call.
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