UL, formally known as Underwriters Laboratories, is an organization that provides product testing for safety and certification for just about anything from telephones to toasters to garage doors. UL’s testing ensures products comply with certain standards. Through testing, UL verifies that a product, in our case, the Horizontal Garage Door, is safe. UL is a disinterested third party that has no stake in our company other than providing reassurance for our customers that our products meet published safety standards. Although there are other companies that provide safety testing, UL is considered the leader in the field and therefore to bear the UL mark, which our Horizontal Garage Door does, means our system is tested, regularly inspected and approved for sale in North America.
A UL certification is not required however architectural specifications in many circumstances require that a particular piece of equipment meet UL Standards. In addition, local building codes may require equipment to have UL Certification and even though UL Standards are not laws, laws can be passed requiring compliance with UL. The residential garage door opener that we use on our system is an example of a product that by law must comply with UL.
(UL 325 is the “Standard for Safety for Door, Drapery, Gate, Louver, and Window Operators and System,” and is the standard that Contour Closures adheres to for its horizontal garage door system. In adhering to UL 325, Contour Closures demonstrates its commitment to safety)
How does UL 325 affect the Horizontal Garage Door System?
The garage door is the largest door and often, the most frequently used door in a home. Unfortunately, people have been injured and killed by use of automatic garage door openers. In response to that, the Consumer Product Safety Commission require that openers meet UL325 standards.
To meet UL325 Standards, a garage door opener must have:
- Inherent entrapment protection as primary entrapment protection
- Secondary protection, either external or a secondary inherent protection
- 30 second maximum run timer
For an inherent entrapment protection, the door must reverse once it comes into contact with an obstruction. To be inherent, it must be an internal and integral part of the opener. For standard garage door openers, this is accomplished with the RPM sensor. When the door meets an obstruction, the RPM sensor sees a slowdown in the motor speed causing a reversal. If the sensor is removed or fails, the opener will not close correctly.
Standard garage door openers use the Protector System safety sensors for secondary protection. This is considered a “non-contact” obstruction sensor, since the door does not have to come in contact with the obstruction. Like the RPM sensor, if the Protector System sensors are removed, the opener will not close correctly.
The third safety feature is the 30 second maximum run timer. The Logic board on a garage door opener is programmed to reverse the opener if the close or down limit is not reached within 30 seconds. This feature prevents the door from continuing to try to close in the unlikely event that the inherent and secondary entrapment features fail. This is why a motor will not continually run if the drive gear is stripped.
Obtaining UL Certification requires significant research, patience and money
We needed to fully understand where our product fell within current UL standards. If our product was significantly similar to current standards, then testing for compliance would have been straight forward. HGD standards were written many years ago, but details were not completely thought through or applicable to the actual product of a Horizontal Garage Door. For example, the photo eye location was vertically oriented on the closing wall or jamb, not under the opening to prevent entrapment. In theory, rotating the garage door and all of its components 90 degrees would suffice. In reality, rotating the photo eye location from under the opening to along the closing wall or jamb, negated the use of an external entrapment protection device
For a garage door, the simplified version for safety features involves inherent and external entrapment protection. Imagine a large kitchen appliance or large power tool that works too hard and trips the breaker when it gets hot or overloaded. When a garage door closes on an object and keeps pushing, the motor works too hard and reaches a point where it reverses instead of tripping the breaker. The motor has an “Inherent” reversal switch activated when the amperage of the motor reaches a designated level under load. The inherent entrapment protection is the same for vertical and horizontal garage doors.
The external protection is typically provided by photo eyes located near the floor under the opening of the garage door or header. If the beam between the photo eyes is broken during the closing direction of travel for a garage door, the motor receives a signal to stop and reverse. In the closing direction, this safety feature is the same for vertical and horizontal garage doors.
In the opening direction, vertical garage doors do not have such a safety feature. If a person were to stand on a ladder in the path of an opening garage door, the door would continue to open and push the person off the ladder with minimal effort. In the case of a HGD, UL 325 compliance ensures we have an external entrapment protection device in the closing AND opening direction of travel.
After researching and determining where we stood with UL, we had to find products that could meet our needs. Our first step was to look for motors made in the USA. Since the HGD market is new to North America, no one state side made a motor that had external entrapment protection in the opening direction. The level of commitment to the cause and patience required to find the right company took about two years’ time. A couple European companies had motors capable of reversing in both directions but only one company, Sommer, agreed to work with us to meet UL 325 compliance AND performance requirements for a functional HGD. Finally, my experience with the Horizontal Garage Door system landed me to a place at the table of the UL Standards and Technical Panel as the only person representing this type of door in the industry.
Obtaining UL Certification is expensive. Our costs are for information only, personal experience with this single project and are not intended to be a reflection of any other business enterprise attempting to go through the UL process. To begin, UL is very good about detailing all of the applicable conditions, defining the scope of work and outlining the terms of the agreement in the form of a document called an Appliance Quote
The key areas for service we established when working with UL were:
- New and Innovative Preliminary Investigation for Horizontal Garage Door
- UL Advisory and Consultation
- Written Documentation Audit
- Inspection and Testing Services
- Certification
- Quarterly Site Inspection and Verification
- Annual Service Fee
Additional services for modification during product development and advancement also come with a significant cost.
With any business venture, there is a balance of risk to reward. In our case, we have spent a significant amount of time and money establishing a solid foundation for the Horizontal Garage Door in North America. Arguably as critical as the Utility Patent, we treat the UL 325 Certificate of Compliance as if it were solid gold. With this document, we have shown a commitment to best practice in business and best effort to bring the Horizontal Garage Door system to market under the strict UL guidelines and standards for consumer safety. Time will tell if our efforts have paid off but by all indications, we anticipate a very bright and prosperous future by offering the best quality and safest garage door on the market.