Sitemap

A human index of the site. The machine-readable version is at /sitemap.xml.

Who publishes this

GarageDude is an independent publisher of garage door information in the United States, operated by GarageDude Media LLC. We do not perform repairs, dispatch technicians, or sell leads to anyone who does. There is no phone number and no quote form on this site, and that absence is deliberate.

It matters on this page because it determines what data exists at all: with no quote forms and no lead routing, there is no customer file to sell, leak, or hand over. Server logs and any email you send us are close to the whole of it.

How the site is funded

There is no advertising and there are no affiliate links today. The intention is to fund it later through display advertising and affiliate links on genuinely DIY-safe products — remotes, keypads, lubricant, weather seal, smart hubs — and never on springs, cables or drums.

That last restriction is not an editorial promise. It is an automated check that fails the build if an affiliate link appears on a page carrying a professional-only verdict, or on any spring, cable or drum page. A policy that can be quietly changed is worth nothing; one that breaks the build is worth something.

What data actually exists

Standard server logs — IP address, user agent, requested URL, timestamp — retained briefly for security and troubleshooting. A localStorage key remembering your theme preference, which contains no identifier and is never sent to a server. And any email you send us, kept so we can reply.

If advertising is introduced later, this page will name every vendor before the first ad is served, and a consent mechanism will appear before any non-essential cookie is set.

Corrections and contact

If something on this site is wrong — a fact, a citation, a translation, or something on this page itself — write to [email protected] and point at the source. We correct on the page itself, with a date, rather than quietly.

Our full method, including the safety verdict criteria and how they are enforced at build time, is published in the editorial policy.

How claims on this site are sourced

Sourcing runs in three tiers, and the tier decides what a page is allowed to assert. Tier 1 is CPSC, the eCFR, UL, state statutes, the Florida Building Code and Miami-Dade product approval, ASTM and the ICC. Tier 2 is DASMA technical data sheets and manufacturer installation and service manuals. Tier 3 is cost aggregators and repair company content — always attributed, and never permitted to source a repair recommendation.

That last exclusion is deliberate. Repair company content is the dominant source in this niche and has a direct commercial interest in overstating what needs replacing, so it cannot be the basis of a claim about what you should replace.

Pages are also tiered by risk. A page making a legal or regulatory claim requires a primary regulatory source and a dated jurisdiction notice. A page making a safety claim requires a manufacturer, DASMA, UL or CFR citation. Both are checked when the site is built, and a page that fails either check does not publish.

Use of automation

Answer drafts are composed programmatically from a reviewed knowledge base of sourced facts. The knowledge base is written and checked by people against primary documents; the composition step selects and arranges, and cannot introduce a number that is not already in the source data.

Spanish is genuine localisation against a terminology list rather than machine translation of the English, and any candidate translation containing untranslated English or malformed grammar is rejected rather than published. Curated safety content is bilingual without exception.

Accessibility

The site targets WCAG 2.2 Level AA, and contrast is computed from the design tokens when the site is built rather than checked afterwards. The safety verdict on every page carries an icon and a text label as well as a colour, so its meaning never depends on colour vision, and screen readers announce it before the answer text.

If something here is not usable for you, that is a defect worth reporting to the address above, and it will be treated as one.

Scope and jurisdiction

This site covers residential garage doors, openers, springs and hardware in the United States. Federal rules — principally 16 CFR 1211, which adopts the entrapment protection provisions of UL 325 — apply nationally to openers manufactured on or after January 1, 1993. Everything else varies.

Building codes, wind load requirements, permit rules and contractor licensing are set by state and very often by county, and they change. Pages describing them state the source and the date it was checked, and they tell you to verify with your local building department rather than implying a national answer exists. Where we have not verified a jurisdiction's requirements, we say that on the page instead of guessing.

Nothing here is a repair manual, an engineering assessment of your specific door, or a substitute for the manufacturer's instructions for your model and model year. Garage door springs, cables and drums store enough energy to cause serious injury or death, and the decision about what work to attempt is yours.