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California to Enforce Battery Backups on Garage Door Openers

garage door opener

If you have an older garage door or if you’re in the market for a new one, a backup battery can be a very valuable addition. The team here at Two Step Garage Doors wants to let you know that it’s not just a great value decision to add a backup battery, but it can save your life.

A new law signed last Friday is hoping to curb the danger and loss of life caused by wildfire power outages as seen in 2017.

California to Enforce Battery Backups on Garage Door Openers

Governor Jerry Brown signed a new law into effect Friday targeting automatic garage doors. This law, Senate Bill 969, is in response to the Northern California wildfires of 2017. At least five people died because they were unable to evacuate their homes due to a power outage caused by the fires.

Penalties and Requirements

Under this new law, automatic garage doors sold after July 1, 2019 are required to come with backup batteries that can provide power in the event of a power outage. To enforce this requirement, “every offending garage door opener” will face a $1000 civil penalty fee. In this way, legislature hopes that the bill will work to prevent any more deaths due to an unresponsive garage door.

Analyzing the Bill

An analysis of the bill cited reports from 2017 of people stopping to help their neighbors raise garage doors during the wildfires. There are also reports of elderly people lacking the physical strength to manually raise their garage doors.

Also, there was a mother who struggled to get her disabled son to safety. Their customized van was in a garage with an unresponsive door.

What is a Backup Battery?

A backup battery is a small, 12-volt battery unit that your garage door opener can use for power during an outage. Just like there are many makes and models of garage doors, there are also many different makes and models of garage door openers.

Some brands that include the option for a backup battery include:
● Chamberlain
● MasterCraft
● Genie
● Linear
● LiftMaster

Please note that one brand of a backup battery cannot be used with another brand of garage door opener.

Backup batteries are designed to provide 24 hours of standby power to a garage door opener when fully charged. During this period of time, it can operate 20 full cycles of use (one cycle of use being one open and one close). Backup batteries are rechargeable, and normally are fully recharged in 4 ½ hours. They are also recyclable.

Call Us Now!

The staff here at Two Step Garage Doors is ready and willing to manage all of your backup battery needs. If you want to add a backup battery to your existing garage door or want to learn more, our team is on hand and happy to assist. Call us today and let us work to make your garage and your family safer.

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Two Step Garage Doors

335 Camp Bullis Rd #20
San Antonio TX 78257

(210) 981-5091
Proudly Serving Texas

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