Custom Wiring for Advising That Garage is Open??

[DaveHembree]

We are adding a 3 car attached garage to our home. The garage will have 2 garage doors (one 2 car wide and 1 single car wide). In our old home, we often left the garage doors open on accident and I would like to wire a solution that would advise when the doors are open.

I am thinking of running some kind of wire (?) from the garage doors to the kitchen. Then I could hook the wires up in the garage to some kind of magnetic or optical solution to turn on/off some small LED or other lights in the kitchen when the doors are open/closed.

Does this make sense and does anyone have any ideas for:
1) type of wire to run between garage doors and kitchen
2) type of "sensors" to use to sense when doors are open/closed
3) type of LED or small type lights to install in kitchen that would signal or turn on when garage door(s) are open.

 

[Junkman]

Liftmaster already has a garage door sentry that will tell you at a glance if the door is open or closed. It also has a monitor function that tells if one of the sensors has gone dead and hasn't reported in for more than 20 minutes. I have it set up in the bedroom, so I can tell at a glance if the doors are open or closed before going to sleep.

 

[TorqueWrench]

My wife left my garage open one day during the week from 7am to 8pm a couple months ago, I was freaked out when I came home. If you guys have a wife like mine, she didn't do it...hehe
I started to design a circuit to shut the door based on the light bulb timer circuit in the opener already. I was just gonna use a timed relay, this could give me at least 15min before the door shut once you opened it. But I am thinking this design will keep triggering and will open itself again. My design could be solved, but I haven thought about it in a while.

 

[rockwithjason]

That would be easy to do. Use some cat 3 or bell wire and run it out to a magnetic door switch. Then use a power supply and an indicator lamp of some type like an LED or what ever is easy.

 

[mwaz]

Like Junkman says. No need to reinvent the wheel. Just go buy this. http://www.liftmaster.com/cw/product_model/0,1064,uid-jml6bWdgZ2dlZw==_670-id-118,00.html

 

[Owen]

I did something similar a while back.

Never seen the LM before, and have some questions on it.
1.Tells you if your garage door is open or closed from any room in your home...When light flashes red, door is open
****So you have to carry that pager thing around?

What I did was use the SmartHome products, can't remember now, it's been like 2 years. But it's the same principal, a sensor that powers a circuit when the contacts are broken.

I wired mine up to a party light (police car rotating RED), I had to disconnect the ringer cuz people in my family would complain...if THEY shut the door like they were supposed to...but I digress.

The SmartHome stuff works off existing 120V wiring in your house, you just need to plug a module in to whatever room you want to pick up the signal.

 

[froggert]

my garage door is wired to the home alarm system. so i can take a look at either of the keypads inside the house and see if the garage door is open or closed.

 

[CraigFL]

my garage door is wired to the home alarm system. so i can take a look at either of the keypads inside the house and see if the garage door is open or closed.

That's probably the best way.

I tried the Sears version of the LM unit and found it to be very unreliable so I took it off. I was running downstairs to shut doors when they were already shut and vice versa...

 

[BoCRon]

I've seen this in a few friends' homes. I don't have one, but from what I've heard it seems to be a good product.
Annette
http://www.smarthome.com/7311gd.html

 

[Fultrtl]

Why not just put it on a timer that shuts evry night at a given time. You forget it does it for you.
Wayne

 

[CraigFL]

I've seen this in a few friends' homes. I don't have one, but from what I've heard it seems to be a good product.
Annette
http://www.smarthome.com/7311gd.html

I like that one! It has a nice long, positive plunger push to activate the switch.

 

[Morrisman]

Simple solution: a huge lock, with ONE key, that lives in YOUR pocket. If nobody else can open the door, nobody else can leave it open.

 

[hawkman22]

http://www.garagebutler.com/