Proposed safety legislation causes controversy

When the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CSPC) Reform Act popped up in Washington, D.C., last November, it contained several sections regarding consumer safety products — including a portion that attempts to clarify UL 325 standards. If passed, it will be the first time Congress has stepped in to mandate safety standards to the garage door industry in more than 15 years.

Some in the industry say this congressional directive is necessary, while others call lobbyists for the bill self-serving and disingenuous. But all agree that the current UL325 standard needs clarification. What they can’t seem to agree on is how to do it.

The CSPC Reform Act is a major overhaul for the CSPC, and happens to include Section 31 Garage Door Opener Standard, which has come under scrutiny by some manufacturers for its language — particularly: “...all automatic garage door openers that directly drive the door in the closing direction that are manufactured more than six months after the date of enactment of this Act shall include an external secondary entrapment protection device that does not require contact with a person or object for the garage door to reverse.”

“[If passed, the bill] essentially takes any product that carries inherent secondary entrapment off the market,” says Neil Giarratana, president and CEO of Marantec Inc. “We looked at that and said it’s totally unacceptable.”

Marantec, a privately owned German company active in 50 countries — including the United States, with its manufacturing plant in Gurney, Ill. — opposes the bill because its wording allows only one specific type of safety technology: non-contact, the most common of which is “photo eyes” or “IRs.” (

The manufacturer of garage door opener systems backs a force-sensing safety technology system that does not use IRs that was recently introduced by Salt Lake City-based Martin Door in April 2007, and contends that Chamberlain — the major manufacturer that lobbied for the bill — is simply trying to shut out their new product from the U.S. marketplace. Because Chamberlain sells this same type of technology with optional IRs in Europe (where standards do not require an external secondary entrapment system), Giarratana calls Chamberlain’s efforts self-serving and disingenuous and opposes the use of congressional mandate to set forth any residential garage door standard.