Trapped in your garage lately?

Ever been trapped in your garage by your own garage door?

If there’s one thing I’m not going to do today it’s make trap door jokes just because the subject of this column is Gerry Trapp of Trapp Doors. Nope. Not going there.

So let’s get right down to business.

Actually my car was trapped in my garage once when the big spring over the door broke and I forgot for a few minutes there’s a manual release to pull allowing you to lift the door.

Now if I’m remembering correctly, I was recovering from hernia surgery at the time (I’ve had six of those) so I couldn’t lift the door anyway and was still — trapped.

Talk about maddening. The trappings of garage door maintenance.

I’ll stop.

I’ll call Trapp after I finish this column so he can make Mustard jokes. I hope he starts with a couple about ketchup and relish, I haven’t heard any of those yet.

Truth be told, we started our Trapp Garage Door interview by joking about the fun and challenges of growing up with a name easily joked about, and I think we decided it was character building. Let’s run with that.

Trapp Doors, without question is an excellent name to remember for professional consultations and sales, installations, services and repair for overhead garage doors and garage door openers. "Brand new doors — old fashioned service" throughout Winnipeg and Manitoba for over 25 years.

Now everything you need to know about Trapp’s excellent company is available at trappdoors.ca, so I won’t try and give it all to you here.

I will, however, leave you with at least two very important pieces of advice.

The first being the most valuable one, because it may save you money. Who doesn’t love saving money? Gerry would like you to know that if you currently have a problem of some sort with your garage door or opener, he invites you to call him at 204-229-4120 because he may be able to tell you how to solve your problem by yourself, no charge. He really enjoys doing that for people. Talk about old school.

Secondly, you’re probably aware that your garage door opener is designed so that if the door contacts something while closing, it will stop and reverse. If malfunctioning, it doesn’t reverse, and can crush whatever is blocking it. So if you want to test whether the sensitivity function is working properly, as the door is closing, when it’s maybe waist high, see if grasping the bottom with your hand reverses it, if not, have it checked out professionally.

DO NOT test it by putting your foot beneath it when it closes, because if it doesn’t reverse, the door will squash your foot, and if you don’t have your remote on you, and you’re not tall enough to reach the manual release, you’ll be…trapped.

True, but pun intended. Bad Laurie. Shame. That one clearly did not cut the mustard.

Moving along, here’s another tidbit of cautionary advice from Trapp. When leaving your home, always open the garage door with the manual button on the wall, and look to see that your door has locked in place at the top. Many a time he has seen people open the door using a remote in the car, and if they happen to double click for some reason, the door comes down as you’re backing out and depending how well the sensitivity control is working can cause anything from a scratch to major damage. When returning home, again, be sure the door is locked open before driving in.

If you’re thinking it’s time for a new door (check the before and after here today) or opener, Trapp has lots of options for those. Did you know technology now exists so you can check your garage door security status with your phone, while off travelling somewhere?

Yes, you can actually watch your garage being broken into from halfway around the world. Now that’s progress!

Comments and feedback always welcome!

lmustard1948@gmail.com