Re: Garage Door Contact - Any alternatives to drilling concrete?

["Jim" <alarminex@xxxxxxx>]

Frank Winans wrote:
> "Beachcomber" wrote
> {howto sense open garage door w/o using sensor
> at bottom of door?}
>
> A) Often you just need a short annunciation in some
> usually-occupied part of the house that the door is
> in motion -- if so, then hang a transformer on the
> opener unit's courtesy 'light-up-the-room' lightbulb
> socket(s), and run that low voltage across the house
> to a 12 volt lamp at said part of house.  Sadly most
> modern units turn off the light after the door's been up
> for a bit, to save bulb life I suppose, so this isn't for
> just everyone's tastes.
> B) Don't sell jury-rigging short;  for instance you can
> extend the 'reach' of a momentary switch with a long
> springy strap or whisker -- in the deluxe version, with a
> roller or slippery curl on the end.  Have that bear
> against something at or near the top of the door,
> where nobody'll mind it.  I just love little
> Cherry {TM} switches, and some of them come with this.
>
> Or have a bracket on the door push on your switch on,
> or off to the side of, the frame via spring or something
> else spongy;  the goal here is to make it all work with
> no precise positioning needed.
>
> Where to scrounge scrap metal?  Saw blades are nice
> and springy, and you can savage discarded mattresses
> for good stout coil springs to hacksaw a few inches from...
>
> Last time I was called to 'fix' an old project like this, it
> was actually an erratic bulb filament at fault, so try a
> new remote-socket bulb _first_ when things get flooky.
> Glue spare bulbs to your fixture with rubber cement,
> as the next homeowner ten or twenty years later
> won't have a clue where to buy them...
>
> C) Drilled concrete probably isn't as horrible a liability as
> one might suppose, though it's rough to accomplish.  And
> they make some really wonderful glues nowadays, so you
> could put stubby screws in to plug the fixture holes, and glue
> the base down instead...  Chisel it all off cleanly if you have
> regrets later.