Photo Eyes Prove Defenseless In Fatalities

A Florida boy was killed in a unique garage door accident involving an opener with photo eyes.

The young boy’s father, a contractor, put photo eyes on his garage door up towards the ceiling, in order to avoid the hassle that comes with many photo eye problems.  He could not have foreseen that in moving the sensors, the resulting loss of safety would claim his son.

John Murphy of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, who helped initiate a more thorough investigation of the fatality, verified the account in anOct. 15, 2008conversation with an official of Martin Door Manufacturing.  There is another other fatality Murphy knows of personally involving a girl, killed when photo eyes were installed more than two feet off the floor, due to high concrete footings.

Proper installation of photo eyes is three to five inches off the floor, according to guidelines provided by Underwriters Laboratory (UL).

Under U.S.federal law (UL 325), garage door openers manufactured for theU.S. since 1993 must include a safety reversing system, such as photoelectric eyes mounted no higher than six inches above the ground, with a light beam spanning the door opening. The opener is required to reverse the door to the open position if the laser beam is broken.

A number of installers, questioned in an informal survey, suggested photo eyes are the number one problem they deal with.  A bit of dust, some sunlight, or even a mouse or rat who chews the wire, can compromise them. 

The result is that some installers have gotten creative on how to avoid the callback.  Some installers over adjust the garage door opener on the home, to avoid the problem.  In some extreme cases, they have been known to mitigate the potential safety aspects of such a system entirely, by putting the sensors near the ceiling, such as theFloridacase.

The issue of tampering with photo eyes becomes especially relevant given recent discussion in Congress in 2008 about a potential mandate for photo eyes, at the expense of contact technology.  Martin Garage Doors offers a UL-listed soft-touch reverse non-photo eye system, which operates much as an elevator or subway train door, reversing on the slighted contact.  The mandate was not ratified as part of a CPSC reform act enacted this year.

Martin’s new soft-touch reverse technology system has no adjustments, and automatically adjusts itself to the weight resistance of each door.  The system reverses itself on 15 pounds of resistance in the down cycle and stops on 25 pounds of resistance in the up cycle.  It cannot be adjusted or defeated by installers or homeowners.

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