Today’s 5.4
magnitude earthquake in Southern California which rattled Los Angeles and San
Diego counties serves as a great reminder that we need to have our homes and
our garages inspected to ensure that there are no structural defects resulting
from this or any other recent earthquakes. When inspecting one’s home we know
to look out for cracks in the façade, cracking around Windows, and cracks in
the chimney, but one of the most overlooked and potentially most dangerous
items if your home’s garage door, a garage door can be the heaviest moving
object at home, one which small children pass beneath, as well as one of our
most expensive items are callers.
It is estimated that today’s earthquake will adversely
affect the structural integrity of up to 100,000 garage doors in Southern
California this includes the garage door itself the tracks, and the support
posts and motor. All of which come together to form a unit that when working
properly served to open and close your garage door protecting your home your family
and your possessions.
It is vital that homeowners take this opportunity to either
inspect or have their garage doors inspected by a trained professional, there
are many companies in Southern California that can perform these tasks a simple
search on Google will deliver results for companies offering these services,
important before you hire someone to come out and do one of these inspections
to ensure that they are in fact trained experts, you would not want to have
somebody who spends their days changing lightbulbs were trimming trees posing
as a garage door expert and thus entrusting them with the safety of your family
and your possessions. It’s very common after natural disasters such as the
earthquake we just experienced for people looking to take advantage of others
who are either in fear or shock or in need and thus posing as professionals or
experts in order to turn a quick profit, the best way to avoid the scammers
that seemed crude climb out of the woodwork during these events is to do a little
fact checking, see how long they’ve been in business, and what their reputation
is like. One of the best ways to ensure that you don’t get taken for a ride is
by going with a referral, seek out a friend or neighbor who recently had work
done to their home and/or garage and find out if they were satisfied with the
performance of the contractor, although doing this light background check may
seem like a lot of work and time of need almost emergency it always better to
be safe than sorry and remember your children will most likely be passing
underneath the store and you want to do everything you can to ensure their
safety and the safety of your home.