Monday, July 7, 2008

Garage Door Repair

Monday morning as I was leaving for work, the garage door gets stuck halfway down. Damn. I get out and with my vast technical know-how determine that the wire that runs up to the "drum" from the bottom of the door has jumped out of the track. Whew no big deal...

I get out up there in my work cloths and try to just pull the wire back onto the drum, no luck. Now I actually put the torsion spring on the garage door the last time they snapped so I had a pretty good idea of what I had to do, however after talking with a co-worker decided to just have someone come and fix it.

I called up a couple of places, one was $99 for the service call, one was $40. So which did I have come out, the $40 place of course. Reliant Garage out of St. Paul. James was the man's name.

I should have guessed how this was going to go down, but we are putting our house up for sale and I needed to get this fixed quick. James gets to our house about 15 minutes early, so I rush out of work to meet him. James walks into the garage, looks around for a minute then tells me:
  • He can't re-tension my spring (company policy), so he will have to install new ones (299)
  • He touches one of the rollers on my door and tells me the ball-bearings are shot and will need to replace them all (199)
Actually, I can't remember all the stuff because it ended up that it was going to cost me 600 dollars. Gut check. Um, James, I don't think so. I just installed those springs 2 years ago, so I am not going to replace those.

James looks all concerned and reports that he will call his office and check to see what he can do. He reports that he can re-tension my springs for $99, but then he can't warranty the work, as long as I replace the rollers. End cost $300.

Again, um, no James, I don't want to replace the rollers. This is getting pretty annoying at this point. James calls in again and reports that with great concern for my satisfaction he will re-tension the spring for $99, oh plus the original $40 service call... At this point I agree, because I am getting tired of arguing. This has taken about 10 minutes, it is now about the time of the original service call.

At this point I describe how I was planning on doing this repair myself, to which he replies that I will definitely hurt my self and should not do it myself. So I let him proceed.

He raises the door, loosens the screws on the drums, lowers the door, reattaches the wires to the drums, loosens the screws on the springs, re-winds the springs, done.

He was done with this work in less then 5 minutes. Walks up to me and asks for a check, I ask if I can check the operation of the door openers first, yeah, yeah. Writes me up a receipt. I ask how what I described earlier was any different then what he did. Oh, you wanted to leave the door up and rewind the wires on the drums. No I didn't. Oh then you described how I did it. WTF.

$139 dollars later and a working door. No tax charged, hmm. Anyways, I am happy to have a working door, but I wish I had had more confidence in my ability. I told my co-worker, that I need to start a garage door repair business...

In any case, garage door springs can be dangerous, however, I think that their danger is exaggerated and that a careful person can perform routine repairs pretty safely.

22 comments:

Chris said...

Had to replace the springs at our new house after 7.5 years.

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irinpervin said...

The garage door is the single largest moving part in your home, and should be inspected and maintained every year. Maintaining a garage door is way down on the priority list for most homeowners but if it's neglected for too long, you could end up needing to replace an expensive.

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Muhammad Hassan said...

This is a very common problem with garage doors. If your remote control opener does not work out to function, then it may be the batteries and buttons, but if they are in good state, then the tracks and cables might require a check. https://clarksgaragedoorrepair.com

blogs said...

While you are performing a garage entrance repair, be sure to clean the tracks with concentrated home cleaner to remove dirt and hardened grease. Clean the rollers thoroughly and then wipe the tracks and rollers dry. garage door repair los angeles ca

Comfort Doors said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
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Farhan.Jee said...

Now, use a lubricating material on the tracks and rollers. In case of tracks, powdered graphite or a lubricating spray works best; while for rollers you can use regular household oil or silicone spray. garage door service Redmond

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Unknown said...

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