The recent spate of terrifying and destructive wildfires has given rise to changes to the law regarding garage doors that will come into effect at the beginning of July 2019, and which are hoped to save lives and prevent tragedy in the event of such an occurrence in the future.
If you’re a property owner and are looking to replace your garage doors, then you’ll need to know how these changes to the law might affect you:
How new California laws might affect the buying of garage doors:
Safety and garage door maintenance is hugely important, and never more so than in the event of a wildfire or similar emergency. The wildfires that ripped through parts of California in 2017 caused destruction on an epic scale and resulted in power outages that made local lawmakers think long and hard about how to protect their residents in the future. Tragically, at least 5 people lost their lives when they were unable to open their garage door during the power outage caused by the fires, and Senator Jerry Brown vowed to put new laws in place to prevent such a tragedy from ever happening again.
Here are some of the main elements of the new bill in brief:
- Back up battery
Any automatic garage doors that are sold after the 1st July, are required by law to include a backup battery that can give power during an outage.
- Old garage door openers
From the 1st July, you will not be able to use an old garage door opener with a new garage
- Penalties
Owners of every garage door opener that doesn’t meet the new requirements face a civil penalty of $1,000.
Some manufacturers are already using the new technology that includes integrated battery backup and Smart features with Wifi.
It’s hoped that any event causing the loss of power to a home and its garage door opener, will never cause such a loss of life again and that by introducing these new laws, garage doors will become much safer during natural disasters and other catastrophic events.
To ensure that your garage door and garage door opener is fully compliant with the new laws that come into effect in July, contact your local garage door professionals to talk about your options. You will not need to compromise on the type of garage doors that you want, but you’ll need to make sure that you have the correct and lawful type of opener.
