It's a Case of Open and Shut

So, yesterday I was leaving the house to go to the post office (which is a short walk away), and pushed the button on the garage door opener to lift the garage door.  Nothing.  No sound, no movement.  I tried again and it opened with a very loud grinding noise that didn’t sound good.  Once I exited the garage, I pushed the button to lower the door and it did so in a jerky movement; again, not good.  Of course, when I returned I had the same experience, so decided to call the garage door man.

He arrived right on time, asked me about the symptoms, then climbed a ladder to check things out. He asked me to join him on the ladder, which I did, and I could clearly see the debris from a mechanical piece, meaning it was slowly disintegrating and the noise I’d been hearing was that metal-on-metal grinding.

All in all, not a good symptom of proper garage door operation.

I held my breath when I asked how much to fix it and got the expected answer: not fixable; needs to be replaced. Gulp. I mentally adjusted my in-my-mind cost and asked how much to replace the whole system and guarantee it won’t break within 6 months and need more money thrown at it.  He was very matter-of-fact: $600, all new system, and warranted.

It took us longer to have the conversation than it did for him to take out the old system and replace it with a new system.  It’s now very quiet; as a matter of fact, I can’t hear any sound when the system opens/closes the door, which is eerie.  I have to look to see if the door is raising or lowering.  He told me that there is no more chain; it’s a more sophisticated system than the one I’d been using for the past 15 years.  I have an option on the keypad next to the garage “house” door that will lock the system so no one driving by can open it remotely, which is nice to know if I’m going to be gone for a few days.

The good news is that I have a new system and can rest easy about the door falling on my head when opening/closing it, which was my fear with the old system.  The bad news is that it cost $600, which is a lot of money out of my pocket.

And there was a hiccup (isn't there always a hiccup?).  I left the garage to go do some errands and the garage door wouldn't close.  I must have tried a dozen times to get it to move and it simply wouldn't, so I called back to the repair service and asked for someone to come get me out of my garage so I can do errands.  Chris, the installer, arrived within an hour, walked up to the control console, and voila! down comes the door.  Of course I stood there feeling like a fool!  Deep inside, however, I knew that it didn't work for me, so I explained that it was hanging up at a certain place in the process and I pointed it out as he worked the control switch.

Yep, there was a hitch in the performance, so he adjusted the big spring at the top of the garage door opening and it worked fine.  Haven't tried it today, but I'm going to be positive that he fixed the problem and I have $600 worth of reliable operation out of my new system.

But the best part of the whole deal is that I “earned” another $25 certificate to use at a very pricey Italian restaurant that serves delicious meals.  The certificate should cover the cost of the tip should I take advantage of the deal, which I may because the food is out of this world good. After all, the certificate was “free.”