According to recent surveys, four out of five people consider convenience the most important benefit of their garage door opener. People want to be able to get in and out of the garage quickly and easily, without any heavy lifting. But what happens when the power goes out? With no electricity to power your garage door opener, suddenly you are left without a convenient way to get your car in or out of the garage. You might even get locked out completely! Fortunately, you can avoid this scenario by investing in a garage door backup battery system. Here are the primary benefits of such a system.
Guaranteed Access
Up to 70 percent of homeowners use the garage as the primary point of entry for their home. Lots of these people don’t even carry house keys with them, because they always enter through the garage and consider the constantly recycled garage door opener code sufficient security. If you fall into this category of homeowner, a power outage can really knock you flat. Without a working garage door opener, you won’t be able to get inside your house at all! But if you install an opener with a backup battery system, you will be guaranteed access to your garage, and a power outage will never catch you unawares.
No Strain
If you can get into your garage through your house or the garage’s back door, you can use the manual door release and pull cord to open and close the garage door. However, depending on the kind of door you have, this can be physically challenging. Heavy wooden garage doors or misaligned doors can be especially difficult to open manually. If you have a big, heavy, or old door, you should definitely invest in a garage door opener system to ensure that you can open the door without straining your back.
Improved Security
In the event of a power outage, you can open your garage door from outside by sticking a wire or bent coat hanger inside and snagging the pull cord to activate the manual release lever. Unfortunately, so can anyone else! If you get a backup battery system, however, you can remove the cord and/or disable the release lever. This will prevent unauthorized access to you garage whether the power is on or off.
Most garage door opener backup battery systems can operate your garage door for about 2 days before they lose their charge. Depending on the weight of your door, this will mean between 20 and 40 opens and closes. In order to conserve power, the lights will not activate when the system is running from backup power. While you can add a backup battery to your existing system, your best bet is to purchase a garage door opener with a built-in backup battery, and get a professional to install it for you.
