Handing Out Candy From the Garage This Year? Read This First.

Halloween's almost here and a lot of you are handing out candy from the garage this year.

We love it. The door goes up, a folding table comes out and the candy bowl sits right where the car usually parks, and you get to sit out with the neighbors all night.

It also puts a few hundred kids next to the biggest moving thing on your house for a whole evening.

None of this is hard and most of it takes a minute. If you'd like the door looked after the rest of the year too, that's what the Golden Key Klub is for, and we'll get to it at the end. First, how a Kraftsman sets up his own garage before the first kid shows up.

Lock the door where it is

Once the door's up for the night it should stay up.

Many wall buttons by the house door have a lock or a vacation switch. Press it and the remotes stop working while the button on the wall still works. Some openers lock out the keypad outside too and some don't, so try yours. That takes care of every remote in the house, including the old one in the kitchen drawer that somebody leans on. If yours doesn't have a lock, pull the remotes out of the cars and set them somewhere up high until morning.

The reason is the photo eyes. They sit on each side of the door and only watch a thin line a few inches off the floor. They'll catch a kid crawling under or a pumpkin rolling across, and they don't see a tabletop or a little one bent over the bowl above that line. Up there the door is counting on its reverse. On a night like this you don't want it moving at all.

Keep decorations off the parts that move

Tape and light hooks on the outside face of the door are fine. A few places to stay off of.

The seams between the panels. The door folds at those seams on the way up, so a banner taped across one gets pinched and pulled into a hinge.

The bottom corners. That bracket is where the lift cable hooks on, and the cable runs straight up to the spring. Tie an inflatable's line there and you're pulling on the spring system, so stake it to the yard instead.

And the track, the opener rail and the spring over the door. The spring most of all. Oil it, never adjust it, and don't hang anything from it. The long version of why is in The Most Dangerous Part of Your Garage Door.

Clear the line at the floor

Fake spider web is the big one. Stretch it across the opening and some of it ends up over the two little photo eyes at the bottom of the tracks. Then the door won't close, or it starts down and comes right back up, and the opener gets blamed for a decoration. Keep the web above the knees and away from both sensors.

Run extension cords along the wall, not across the opening. A cord lying under the door gets pinched by the bottom seal every time it closes.

Same with the table and chairs. Set them back inside the garage behind the door line so nothing has to move before the door can come down.

Close up right when it's over

When the porch light goes off and the bowl is empty, bring the table in and close the door from the wall button, watching it the whole way down. It should sit flat on the slab with no gap at one end, because the nights are cold now and a gap lets the cold in. Then unlock the wall button so the remotes work again in the morning.

Don't leave it open overnight. People are still out walking late on Halloween.

Sixty seconds before the first kid walks up

Press the lock on the wall button and try a remote. Nothing should happen.

Look at both photo eyes. Their little lights are on and nothing is hanging in front of them.

Walk the opening once and look for cords on the floor or anything tied to the bottom corners.

That's it. Go get the candy.

The rest of the year

A Kraftsman runs a Door Score on every Kooler visit before a tool comes out of the truck. He reads the springs and cables under tension and actually tests the safety reverse, and he walks you through what he found. It's free.

The Golden Key Klub keeps that going all year. Members get the yearly Kooler Kare tune-up, priority scheduling, no trip or diagnostic fee, members-only repair pricing and a K Kap safety check on every visit. When something does go wrong, you're at the front of the line.

If your door's been acting up and you want it right before the kids show up, call or text 970-816-6052. We're across the Grand Valley and Montrose.

Happy Halloween from all of us. Save us a full-size bar.

We Got You.