Tuesday, September 24, 2019

Garage Door Blues and A Happy Ending

Yesterday was already a very busy day, starting out by driving out to the far YMCA, then the Chiropractor, breakfast, a quick stop at Target, then off to work. Best laid plans, etc., and even though everything did get done, roadblocks of a more serious nature opened up. 


The concept of automatic garage door openers is pretty simple. A
signal is received by the ceiling-mounted motor which
activates a chain attached to the center of the door. As the
chain retracts, the door moves up curved side railings until it is
fully retracted. Today's doors have to have safety sensors at
the bottom rails and a few other safety features to protect
children and animals from getting pinned or crushed. 




There's nothing like opening up the garage door at 4:40 am, backing the car out, clicking the garage door opener to close the door, and having nothing happen. Nothing! I had put a new battery into the opener on Sunday because it wasn't working well when I picked up our Pizza for dinner. A new battery seemed to resolve the problem, so I didn't mention it to DH. But this ... well this was WAY more of a problem. I had to wake DH up and we had to figure out if it was my opener, the garage door itself, or what. We finally got my opener to work, so I headed off and did my YMCA and Chiropractor, arriving home to see DH just picking up the morning paper. When I clicked my opener, the door didn't budge once again. 



The idea, of course, is that clicking the appropriate
clicker will open and close the garage door, eliminating
lifting the heavy door manually. Our first house up
here in the Frozen Northlands had a manually-operated
garage door, and the homes I grew up with also did. I happen
to be a great fan of the automatic garage door opener. 



DH set up a ladder and we pulled off the housing, checking the motor which seemed to have finally died. We're talking about an original garage door opener from 1960, and it was tired and said "The hell with it, I'm tired and I quit!" I couldn't blame it, but DH still had to get over to the Chiropractor and then come to the office to work for the day. A non-functional garage door wasn't going to cut it. 

We decided to work with the door manually, and I would contact the guys who had fixed it in the past (replacing broken chains and rails for us in prior years). Their operation didn't open until 8:00 am, so I left a message and headed out to breakfast. DH texted me that the door handle broke off when he was pulling the door open to get his truck out, but he managed to work with the lock instead and got it open. 



I opted for the backup power too, so that we can still open and
close the door easily even if our power is out. Our door is old,
wooden, and very heavy and I'm not sure I could lift it on my own. 



Mark, from Hamline Garage Door, contacted me when he opened. He remembered us and also remembered my Father-in-law (everyone knew my FIL - he was a very outgoing and engaging guy). He said he could be out in early afternoon and he would phone before he headed over. So, DH came to work for a couple of hours, then was away from the shop for a couple of hours, and then returned long enough to load up the truck with the next bunch of equipment we were taking home to the new studio workspace. 



I'm totally smiling now. I have a new, reliable garage door
opener in place before our next winter, and that's one more
think off my "possible problems" mental list. Yippee! 



I now have a new garage door opener that's up to code, works like a dream, and has a outside panel so that we don't have to carry openers along with us when we're cutting the lawn or working in the patio area. I had been thinking, just a few days ago, "I wonder how the door will work this coming winter?" Now I know - it wouldn't work at all, but now, I'm suddenly very happy. One less worry on my plate. 

On that note, have a wonderful Tuesday. I'm plugging in photos and getting out of here to the gym. I have to work off the last of my Sunday night pizza binge. I'll be back tomorrow. 


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