The Automated Garage Door

Ever wonder if your garage door is open or closed? Ever forget to close the garage after bringing in the groceries? Lose the Remote for the garage door and need to replace it?
Well if you answered yes to any of the questions above, have I got the solution for you. All you need is a few simple X10 devices and a screwdriver.
Want to know when your carage door is open or is being opened? All you need is a set of normally open magnetic contacts, an X10 PowerFlash Interface, and X10 door chime or Receptacle, and a nightlight.
How does all this tie in together you ask?
First, we need to establish a way to know when the door is open or closed. This will be acheived using the magnetic contacts. Placed next to each other, one half on the door, the other on the frame around the door. When the two halves are separated, the little contacts inside close, and when they are together a magnet holds the contacts open. This opening and closing of contacts will give us a way to record when the door is open and closed.
Once the Contacts are mounted on the door, you will then need to run two wires from the contacts to a device known as a powerflash interface. This little box has screw terminals to connect to any sort of switch device like those magnetic contacts. When the powerflash detects conductivity between its contacts it sends out an X10 ON command to the same address it is set to. This continuity in out situation is acheived by the magnetic contacts closing when the door opens.
Now when the Door closes and the Continuity between the Powerflash's terminals goes away, the powerflash sends an OFF command. And now we have a signal upon opening and closing of the garage door.
Now that we have signals being sent when the door opens and closes we need to give these signals something to do. For notification of opening, we will plug an X10 Door chime into an electrical outlet in the house somewhere. Now lets set the address on the Chime to the same address of the PowerFlash module. When ever the door opens the powerflash will send out a signal and trigger the chime to go Ding-Dong-Ding-Dong-Ding-Ding. This gives you a audible signal that the door is opening.
The previous step is great if you hear the chime when the door is opened. But what about at night or when you've been inside all night and the Door is wide open. The chime isnt going off repeatedly, how do you know if the door is open?
Take the chime module out of the wall outlet. Heres where the screwdriver is used again. Take out the normal outlet out of the wall and replace it with an X10 outlet where the top socket switches on and off. The Bottom is always on like a normal outlet. Place the Chime module in the lower outlet. Then set the address dials of the outlet to the same address as the powerflash. Now plug the nightlight in to the top outlet. Now when the Door opens the Chime will sound, and the Night light will turn on.
You can use this to see when you're walking around the house, when you see that nightlight on you know the door is open.
Pretty easy huh? Thats what I thought you would say. "How do I close it?" Just keep reading.