Have you considered turning your garage into a recording studio?

Don’t forget the garage door

In 1960, several young men setup their equipment in their garage and hit a note that has reverberated through history. That garage was in Liverpool. And by ‘their equipment,’ we’re referring to their musical instruments. We came to know of them as the Beatles. But they’re hardly the only band to get its start in a garage.

The garage is simply a logical place to start a band. Assuming is relatively clean and organized, there’s plenty of room for drums, keyboards, amplifiers, speakers, guitars and other instruments. In the summer, you can roll up the garage door and share your music with the neighbors. In the winter, hopefully the garage is heated.

That pretty much describes how bands got started in their garages: move the instruments in and start playing. Today, however, a garage can be more than four walls and an overhead garage door – much more.

You can turn your garage into a recording studio

With a little work, you can seriously improve the acoustics of the garage. You can setup recording equipment and record your band’s musical accomplishments.

The first step is to soundproof your garage. If your garage has insulation and drywall, that’s a start. But you may still want to add some soundproofing to the walls. You may also want to soundproof the windows. And then there’s the garage door.

Does your garage door have insulation? If not, you may want a garage door that does. 

What kind of material is your garage door made of? If it’s made of metal, does the metal rattle when you’re playing music? You may have to listen closely to tell.

A wooden or fiberglass garage door is probably better. And that insulation can make a big difference.

Soundproofed, your garage will provide a setting where you’ll have less distortion when recording your music. But soundproofing does more than that. 

It’s just possible that the neighbors may not want to hear you playing your music (they may not realize they’re having a special opportunity to hear that next big band in its formative days. Soundproofing will help you to avoid calls to the police and will allow you to play later into the night. It’s the neighborly thing to do.

If you do a good enough job setting up your recording studio, you can even charge other people to use your garage. And it’s easy. Roll up the garage door and let them bring their instruments in. Then roll the garage door down again so they can start playing, and you can start recording.

Shake, Rattle and Roll – are your garage door and garage door opener in tune?

 Shake, rattle and roll, shake, rattle and roll

I said shake, rattle and roll, shake, rattle and roll

Do you remember Bill Haley and the Comets or Elvis Presley cranking out that hit from the ‘50s? A bit ahead of your time? Rolling Stone magazine lists it as one of the 500 Greatest Songs of all time. Considering, it may work as lyrics for a song but is it the number you want your garage door and garage door opener duo to sing?

When you strike up this band, you expect your garage door and garage door opener to sing an ultra-smooth harmony. You’d rather hear them do a rendition of The Platters hit Twilight Time as you open and close the door following a relaxing evening out with your spouse.

The point is that, if your garage door is keeping a beat while the garage door cranks it up or down, that could indicate a problem with your garage door equipment. And the problem is that a garage door’s shake, rattle and roll might just vibrate something else out of whack. The longer it vibrates, the longer other parts will shake until they rattle loose. 

If your garage door opener and garage door conspire to sing out of tune, you may find the culprit hiding among the symphony of parts that are supposed to play a synchronized melody. To find the problem, you may need to through the orchestra piece by piece while paying special attention to the following instruments:

• Nuts and bolts are loose
• Some of the slides and rollers require some lubrication
• A spring or another of the essential performers is broken
• The pulleys, gears or belts that carry the tune from the opener to the door need adjustment

The goal is to ensure that the orchestral performance of your garage door and garage door opener are prepared to play its well-rehearsed numbers cohesively. When everything is in tune, they’ll play those songs, up and down, with the same vigor for years to come (with due maintenance) while bridging your entry and exit from the garage whenever you call.

Don’t ignore a blinking light in your North Chicago garage door opener

You could close the doors so you don’t see the light blinking in your North Chicago garage door opener. If you don’t see it, is it really blinking. But, unlike a refrigerator, where there’s no to tell whether the light stays on when the door is closed, with your garage, you can stand inside the garage door and see if the light continues blinking when you lower the garage door.

You may be tempted to ignore the blinking light. After all, it’s annoying. Just close the doors and you can forget it. But you may want to consider ‘why’ the light on your North Chicago garage door opener is blinking.

Garage door openers are designed to provide warning signs if there’s a problem. A blinking light in the garage door opener is one of those signals. Now the trick is to figure out what your garage door opener is trying to tell you.

A blinking light in the garage door opener generally indicates one of two specific problems: either there is an issue with the lock button of a problem with a reversing sensor.

Check the lock button first

The lock button is on the remote control. If the lock button is depressed and engaged, a remote control will not open the garage door; the only way to open the door is to use the controller on the wall inside the garage.

This is a security feature designed to ensure that someone can’t hack into your garage with another remote control.

To fix the problem, hold the lock button for five seconds. The light should flash twice. When you see this, press the control button and it should fix the problem.

Not the lock button? Probably the safety reversing sensor

You’ll find these sensors near the floor on either side of the garage door. First, check to see that nothing is in the way blocking the light beam between the sensors. If that’s not the case, it’s possible that the sensors are out of alignment. 

Finally, it’s possible that the sensors or some other component of the garage door opener is malfunctioning. You may want to call a qualified garage door technician to take a look. What you don’t want to do is to ignore a blinking light on your North Chicago garage door opener.

Maximize the use of your garage to enhance your hobby or business

What are your hobbies and how does your garage help? Or maybe you have a business and your garage can fill a need. The point is that, whatever you do, whether working or with your free time, you might consider how your garage can provide useful storage and space.

Let’s suppose that you’re a quilter. You have plastic boxes filled with supplies for quilting. You may even have a 12-foot quilt frame that just takes up too much room in the basement or the backroom. Assuming the garage is heated, you could turn it into a very useful quilting cabin. And a shelving unit along the wall could handle most of your supplies. You could even color coordinate your storage.

Then again, you’re a hunter/fisher/outdoorsman. You’re not a run-of-the-mill enthusiast; you’re serious about your outdoor activities. A place to hang your fishing poles will not suffice. 

You could build a wall full of cubby holes for different lures and fishing equipment. For hunting, you may load your own ammo. You’ll have your loader table with shells, gunpowder and pellets stored in easy reach so, when you do load ammo, you can just roll your chair one way or the other to grab what you need.

If you’re hobby is woodworking, the garage is a woodshop made to order. You have plenty of room for your work bench, table saw, lathe, jigsaw, clamps, hand tools, work horses, and more.

If mechanics are your thing, you can turn your garage into a workshop to refurbish and old car or maintain your motorcycle. You may simply use your garage to store your fishing boat and/or snowmobiles. 

If you’re a tradesman, your garage can hold supplies and equipment. It’s a safe place to park your work truck or van so you less likely to have someone break in and steel your essential equipment.

Whatever purpose you find for your garage, if you set it up smartly, there’s a good chance it can double as the place to park your car. To do so takes planning. 

You’ll want to measure the space and have an idea of the dimensions of your vehicle, tools and equipment. You’ll want to consider items that you can store by suspending them from the rafters.

Done properly, you can dramatically increase the useful value of your garage. Of course, you’ll want to make sure that your valuables are protected and yet easily accessed. This is where your garage door and garage door opener come into play.

The key to ensuring that your garage door and garage door opener are assets to your garage is maintenance. Keep your garage door and garage door opener functioning properly and you can focus on your hobby or business.

Even 007 would have to troubleshoot the keypad if the garage door to MI6 won’t open

Thirty years ago, a keypad at the door was something you expected to see a secret agent use when entering their inner sanctum. Now, when entering your North Chicago garage, you use that keypad with hardly a thought. It’s second nature.

The day may come, however, when you’ll enter your secret code into the keypad, push the button to raise the door, and nothing will happen.

After a pause while you wait for your North Chicago garage door to do its thing, you suddenly realize it’s not responding. So you enter your passcode again, press the button, again, and wait, again. And, again, nothing happens.

How many times will you enter your passcode into your garage door keypad before you accept the reality that it’s not working and not going to work? That probably depends on the individual. Some will stubbornly try half a dozen times. Others, after three or four tries, will accept reality.

Accepting reality, however, doesn’t mean regressing back to the Dark Ages before keypads (or when keypads were used to keep people out of top-secret facilities). It means that the keypad needs to be fixed so that it will work again. That means troubleshooting to figure out what the problem is.

Troubleshooting goes beyond trying your passcode again and again. It includes the following steps:

• Replace the battery in the keypad. This is the first place to start and the easiest solution. Put a new battery in and give it a try. If that works, easy-peasy.
• Check the wiring inside the keypad. Are all the wires connected? Are they in good condition? If not, a fairly simple repair should have your keypad back in working order before you know it.
• Clean the keypad. Blow some compressed air inside the keypad. Consider cleaning the connections where the wires are secured. Wipe down the numbers on the keypad.
• Reset the PIN number on your keypad (if you punched your numbers in too many times, the garage door may have stopped working because you’ve done so too often).
• Reboot your garage door opener. This is a bit like starting over. You’re giving yourself a clean slate.

If none of these solutions have worked, it’s possible that you need a new keypad. If you can handle the installation yourself, you can pick up a new keypad at a box store. However, if you want a better quality keypad, you may want to go to a garage door supplier or bring in a garage door technician. 

That garage door technician can also help with troubleshooting, if you need their assistance. In any case, you’ll have that James Bond confidence back again the next time you use your keypad to open your North Chicago garage door.

Maintenance is critical to garage door longevity and reliability but beware of scams

The garage door and garage door opener are two mechanical components around the house that consistently come up short in terms of timely maintenance. If you maintain them properly, it will save you time, money and aggravation in the long run. But beware of scam artists who use your garage door and garage door opener to work their way into your pocketbook.

Proper garage door and garage door maintenance usually involves making some adjustments and applying proper lubricants in the right places and in the appropriate quantities. Con artists, however, may try to convince you that you need to spend money for repairs your garage door and garage door opener don’t need.

• One scam involves overstating the experience and expertise of a company that offers to perform maintenance, repairs or replacement of your garage door and/or garage door opener. Will they make the right adjustments and make them appropriately? Will they lubricate properly? Will they overestimate the need for replacement of parts, possibly including major components? You need to ensure that your garage door technician is actually a qualified professional who will do the job right and give you the benefit of actual experience and training.
• Another scam involves offering a Lifetime Warranty when that warranty may not be worth the paper it’s written on. It may turn out that the warranty only covers parts, or certain parts. Or it may turn out that, when you need to use the warranty, the company that installed your garage door or garage door opener has vanished into the wind and you’re left holding the bag.
• Another scam is selling you things you don’t need. Are the components of your garage door really worn out or do they just need some adjustment and lubrication? You’re probably not an expert on garage door and garage door opener maintenance and repair. How are you to know if the parts are really worn out as badly as they indicated?

The best way to protect yourself from garage door and garage door opener scams is to do some research on the company you’re thinking to hire. And, if you have any doubts about what they’re telling you, don’t hesitate to get another opinion. A quality garage door technician will understand and appreciate your caution. If they don’t like the idea, there’s probably a good reason and an equally good reason for you to toss their number in the garbage.

Why is your Huntley garage door jammed and what can you do about it?

Garage doors are made to go up and down. They go up. Then they come back down. That pretty much sums up their responsibilities (along with keeping unwanted things, animals and people out). When your Huntley garage door gets stuck, it stops going up and coming down. That’s generally not part of the plan.

The first question is ‘Why?’ Why would your Huntley garage door abandon its responsibilities so flagrantly? 

There are several possible explanations, including: 

• The cable that lifts the garage door is broken
• The garage door is off its track
• You have a broken garage door spring
• Something has jammed or is blocking the garage door from moving
• The garage door opener is broken
• The power is out and the garage door opener won’t work
• The garage door is locked

The next question is, ‘What to do about the problem?’

First a word of warning: There are parts of the garage door that could seriously injure a person or worse. It’s okay to take a look at the garage door to see if you can identify the problem but approach with caution.

For instance, if you find that a broom handle has fallen into the door’s path and has lodged in place so the door won’t operate, as long as you’re careful, you may be able to extricate the broom so the garage door can return to it’s assigned duties of going up and down.

If you notice that the garage door is locked you can unlock it. If you discover that the power is out to the garage door you can check the fuse box or circuit breakers. But be cautious here, too: there may be a short that tripped a circuit breaker and shorts can cause fires.

You may notice that the spring that runs side-to-side above the garage door is broken. This is definitely something you want to leave to the professionals. Those springs come with such force that they can take off a finger in the blink of an eye, or worse, if someone doesn’t know what they’re doing.

The same is true if the cable is broken. It’s possible you can put the garage door back in the track, if you approach it with caution, but the question is, ‘Why did it come out of the track and will it come out again?’

The garage door opener often requires the technical skills and experience of a professional. 

If there’s nothing apparently wrong with your Huntley garage door and garage door opener, you may want to call in a professional to perform some maintenance. Timely maintenance is the pound of cure that could save you from the problems listed above.