Mr Old's Garage

There are hundreds of garage door openers to choose from but before you can do that there are two key considerations concerning your garage door itself.

Before deciding on an electric garage door opener check that an able bodied person can effortlessly open the garage door manually as a motor will not do what they can’t.  If the door works smoothly and effortlessly, then adding an electric operator should be straight forward.

You will also need to check that your door balances at around chest height to ensure you have the correct spring tension for the operator to lift the door.  If the springs are broken or the door is not balanced properly the electric operator will not work effectively.  You may need to service the door by lubricating the moving parts or replace the door springs and other moving parts.

The other consideration is to know what type of garage door you have.  This is because it is essential for you to choose the correct device to suit your door mechanism to ensure the safe and smooth operation of your garage door.

There are four main types of garage door mechanism: retractable door, canopy door, side hinged door, and sectional door.

Up & Over – Retractable Garage Doors (Tracked)

These are identified by a single door panel with springs either side or horizontal ceiling tracks which support the door in the open position.  When the garage door is fully open, the bottom edge of the door is flush with the garage door frame

If you have a retractable up and over garage door then you are in luck, as these are ideal for automation and you can safely use any type of operator.  Your main considerations must be the noise (AC or DC motor) and the material, width and weight of the door to ensure you choose an operator powerful enough to lift the door.

Up & Over – Canopy Doors (Trackless)

This door type is not recommended for safe automation although there are options available; I would never recommend or safety and reliability.  If you don’t want to replace the entire door and mechanism you can purchase a retractable door mechanism and replace the canopy door gear.

An up & over canopy door is identified by the large spring which runs over the head of the door and when the door is open the garage door panel protrudes by approximately 600mm from the opening.

Side Hinged Doors

These garage doors can be automated using a conversion kit with most operators.  You will need to check the operator can be use for side hinged doors so that the auto-reverse safety feature functions normally.

Sectional doors

Sectional Garage Doors are identified by hinged panels that allow the door to rise vertically without swinging out as the door opens.

They are perfect garage doors for automation as no additional parts are required and you can use any type of AC or DC operator.  To ensure the operator will fit it’s a good idea to check the clearance above the door during its opening cycle then check the minimum clearance requirement for the operator as they vary.

Again your choose an operator powerful enough to lift the door.

Image taken on 2010-01-09 04:51:25 by B1gJ4k3.

this is my friends’s crazy idea of turning his one car garage into a home theater crazy mofo looks sick at the end. he has a 1080p Epson projector 120″ hd screen and other crazy stuff like that thell me what you think.

Consumerism is the name of the game in the US, and people who have been participants for any length of time usually end up with more things than they can comfortably fit into their living spaces. So the items which are no longer in regular use but are too valuable to toss or give to the Good Will often head for garage storage.

This system, however, has one major drawback; if enough things make their way to the garage, the garage stops being a garage and turns into a garage storage unit. It may become so overloaded that it cannot even be closed, or have pathways between boxes and furniture by which people can access what they are looking for.

Eventually, however, most homeowners with overstuffed garages surrender to the reality that they need to do a garage storage cleanup. And those who do will help themselves a great deal by realizing that if they haven’t used some of the things in the garage since they were tucked away months or even years ago, they are not likely to use them in the future. It definitely makes the throwing-out process much less painful.

Getting Started

If your day of reckoning with your garage storage problem has finally come, arm yourself with the biggest, strongest trash bags you can find, and prepare to be merciless. If you have a van or truck into which you can place each bag as it is filled, even better.

If you have someone who can drive the truck or van to the nearest Good Will as soon as it is filled, even better still. The more distance you can put between yourself and the things which constituted you garage storage problem, the easier it will be.

Re-Organizing

When you have eliminated all the things you can no longer use from the garage storage equation, it’s time to re-organize the rest. If you find things that really belong elsewhere in your house, put them in cartons marked with the names of their final destination, and get them out of the way.

Break down the remaining garages storage items according to their uses; place like near like. Paints, thinners, brushes and roller pans can go together; grass seed, lawn feeder, and other gardening necessities can go together. Just keep going you have a place for everything, and everything is in its place.

When you’ve reached that point, you’ll be in a much better position to determine if its time to upgrade your garage with new garage storage cabinets and wall shelves. More importantly, you’ll have the room to do it!

For the remainder of the items in the garage storage, reorganize them by placing like products near each other. For example, all cleaning supplies should be in the same place while all the gardening supplies should be grouped together. Continue until all products have been grouped together.

When you first approach the job of cleaning out the garage storage, it will seem nearly impossible. Rest assured that by doing a little at a time, you can certainly return your garage as close as possible to its clutter-free state.

Whilst a lot of people do have electricity in their own garages and sheds, heat can be an issue throughout winter.

However you can take advantage of the sunny days of winter and use solar power from the sun to produce heat in your garage. Particularly if you live in hilly or mountainous areas, where the sun can reflect the suns rays as you could build a solar furnace to collect some of that sunshine that bounces off the snow or that just beams down. Solar powered furnaces have in the past recorded to reach temperatures of up to 110 degrees. So if you have a lot of scrap laying around in your basement, then put it to good use.

You can start with some 2×4’s and plywood to make a simple box. It helps if you build your box to the dimensions of the material that you are going to be fitting in there, in this case you should use aluminum cans because they’re easy to get hold of and to fit into your home made box. 50 cans in 5 columns of 10 will funnel air upwards.

Before putting your cans in the box, be sure to seal the edges with wood glue to ensure that any of the heat that the box produces does not escape.

So you may have already thought, “How can air climb the columns of cans when there’s no hole at the bottom of the can?” Answer: drill press and 3/4-inch bit. Times 45.

The last five cans, the bases of each column, will sit on the bottom of the box and thus will be unable to draw air from underneath, so I poked holes in the sides of each of the five. Stack the cans with liberal doses of adhesive caulk. Give them enough time to dry. Once they have dried paint each column with black BBQ paint to absorb the suns heat, make sure that the paint is matt, as it absorbs more heat like this, BBQ paint is also very good because it keeps from flaking off the cans.

At the top, you can then drill an outlet hole. Leave an inch or two of space between the tops of the columns and the top of the box to permit air to flow out of the columns. Drill out the outlet hole based on the diameter of a wet-dry vacuum hose that you could find laying in your basement, about 1-1/2 inches in diameter.

At the bottom you can use another wet-dry vacuum attachment; the rectangle shaped end that you use on the carpet, this will disperse the incoming air more evenly. Screw it in at each ends, then glue the seal. Then you can start to glue the columns in place. Remember to have drilled your inlet hole in the bottom. You can drill an inlet hole at the base for each column if you have time, this way the air can simply pass over the cans (there’s about 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch between the cans and the upper edge of the 2×4 frame) and all the air would be forced to pass though them picking up all of the absorbed heat.

You can then make a frame for your solar powered furnace using anything strong enough to hold it up towards the sun, you may wish to attach a thermometer to it to see how quickly it heats up and to what temperatures it can reach. Once it has been out side all day you can then bring it inside your garage and the heat that has been preserved by the solar heater shall radiate through your chosen space to heat up.

Police: Driver can’t recall blasting through 2 homes
MILWAUKIE, Ore. — A 66-year-old Milwaukie, Ore., woman says she meant to back out of the garage but instead sped forward through the wall, her yard, her neighbor’s fence and crashed into the neighbor’s place. Lan Hughes couldn’t recall what made her do it. She told Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office that she’d been backing her maroon Subaru out of her home on 7781 Heather Court. That’s the last …

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How many times have we taken our home garage for granted? We pile stuff in anywhere it will fit and maybe it will set there for years. Our garage can become so cluttered that sometimes there is not enough space for the automobile we drive. Sound familiar? If not then you might be in the other half that keeps their garage as neat as a pin. If you are then you well know how hard it is to keep it that way.

Most homes built after the late 1930’s have some kind of garage. Some may have only a one car garage, while most today are at least the two car size, with three car garages and up becoming the rule instead of the exception.

Home garages are used for all kinds of different things, such as work shops, a home business, storing things that will not fit in the home, and maybe even parking the car in if there is enough room left. Some times a garage can get so full some will construct a special garage just for their automobiles. One way to help with the clutter most of us have is with peg board. Peg board is very easy to install. Without drywall all one has to do is level and fasten to the studs with wood screws. With drywall you will want to leave at least a half inch space between the pegboard and the wall so there will be room for the hooks to fit through. Most often 2×4’s are what is used for the walls in a garage, the only thing you will need to do is to be sure to locate the studs before fastening the peg board. Once everything is in place you will be amazed how much you can get off the floor and onto the wall. You will need some different accessories like hooks, different kinds of bins, baskets, and brackets, after awhile you will wonder how you ever got along without the peg board. It makes everything more readily available to you and if you can see it you will use it. You can even hang shelves on the peg board for storing other things like books, sports equipment, paint cans, or anything else. With peg board you are only limited by how much and what to hang onto the hooks and shelves. One other feature is if you move the peg board can go with you if you choose. Peg board is not a cure all for garage clutter, but it can be a great start in the right direction.

Another solution that might help is garage shelving. There are several ways to go about this, one is to install prefabricated shelving, the other is to build on site shelving yourself if you feel you can handle the job, if not you might want to hire it done. Either way wall shelving around your garage will help control the clutter most of us have. Prefabricated shelving can be found in most all of the home improvement centers where you live. There may be some assembly required with some of the larger shelving, but it is generally pretty straightforward.

What we’re after here is to organize our garage. The things outlined here will be a start in the right direction. See the author resource box below for additional information and specials on garage organizer systems.