SUN CITY – The Carbon Monoxide CO Detector / Garage Door Opener is a large and technical name for a very simple idea. So simple, it amazes its inventor, Sun City resident Thomas VanTilburg, that it’s not already on the market.
After walking into his garage filled with an excess of exhaust fumes from his car, Sun City resident Thomas VanTilburg invented a device that automatically opens a garage door when it detects harmful levels of carbon monoxide. The Chicago Innovation Awards recognized VanTilburg in 2008 for his invention. (Photo by Chris LaPelusa/Sun Day)
VanTilburg’s Carbon Monoxide CO Detector / Garage Door Opener is a small unit meant to install in a garage and monitor carbon monoxide levels. When the unit measures an unsafe level of carbon monoxide, an alarm will sound, and it will automatically trigger the garage door to open to let harmful vapors out before carbon monoxide levels become deadly. The unit will also override all other garage-door functions, locking the door open until the air in the garage returns to a safe, breathable level.
VanTilburg got the idea for the device, which he now owns the patent on, in 2006, after buying his first car with a remote-starter feature.
“Excited as we were to use this new toy, we hit the button, started it [the car] up, got ready to go, went out to pull the car out, and the garage [was] loaded with exhaust,” recounted VanTilburg. “That’s how it all dawned on me. I said, ‘Why can’t they have something that would have opened the garage?’”
VanTilburg, an ironworker by day, sat on the idea for a few months, he said, then talked it over with his wife before deciding on a patent.
“We said, ‘Well, let’s just give it a try and see what happens,’” VanTilburg said. “We’re still trying.”
Since obtaining the patent, and together with Sun City resident Ed Slomski, who had a career in product development, VanTilburg has approached numerous corporations, such as First Alert and Caddy Corporation, with the Carbon Monoxide CO Detector / Garage Door Opener.
VanTilburg sees the device as something that could be a mandatory safety feature for all garage-door systems, no different than the sensors that stop a garage door from closing.
VanTilburg said that within the past few years, there has been one carbon monoxide-related death in Sun City from deadly levels accumulating in a resident’s garage while the resident was cleaning a car.
“The ultimate goal,” VanTilburb said, “is to save some people’s lives with [the Carbon Monoxide CO Detector / Garage Door Opener].”
