Monday was one of those "Days From Hell". And Murphy ruled supreme.
The day started going wrong before I even turned on my computer at work. One of our resident clowns wrote up a bunch of stuff and took it out of circulation for "being right". Uh, huh. You read that right. The stuff was correct, yet he locked it down. I won't bore you with details (plus, as it is work related, I won't bore you with track-able details). Let's just say they took someone else's word that the stuff wouldn't work, and went from there. It took several hours, on and off, to get all that straightened out.
And it continued like that all day. One major screw up after another needing attention and time. By clock out time, I was glad the day was over.
I was looking for an easy and pleasant evening. All that was on my roster for the night, was meeting the Bug Guy right after work for a maintenance spray. Keep the seasonal round of spiders, crickets, fly-buggies, and other creepy-crawlies at bay.
When I got home I figured I'd do some quick and simple picking up around the house to expedite the spraying. And since I intended to be in other parts of the house, I closed the garage door so the Bug Guy and I didn't scare each other. (The garage is usually left open when we're home. Since the Bug guy has been coming around on such a regular schedule, and I am normally right by the door waiting on him, he usually just knocks, then comes in and starts spraying.)
I'm in the basement when I hear this loud BANG. It sounded like something hit the house. Something BIG. My first thought was the brakes gave out on the Bug Guys truck and he hit the garage door. But looking out the window, no truck. Then I went window to window, and checked to see if a neighbors tree had fallen and hit the house. (it's been wet and windy...lots of storms...so that thought wasn't unreasonable). Nope, no trees down. So I went to open the garage door and take a walk around the house and find the source.
When I got in the garage, I found the source. One of the door springs had blown. Those suckers have a LOT of energy stored in them, and when they go, they GO. LOUDLY.
Wonderful. Crappy day at work, Bug Guy due to show up, and a blown spring on the door.
So my plan is to unhook the door from the rail, so I can manually open it to let the Bug Guy in when he shows. Then, get on the phone and get someone out to replace the spring. Sounds good.
Door won't go up. Check the latch, "off". Check the guide rails and rollers, "good". Door panels all hinged and working, "check". Lift door, "nothing". Still won't budge.
Called 4 shops, all could make it out that evening. But since it was after 4pm, it would be "overtime" or "emergency pay". Which equates to double normal rates. Plus parts. If I wanted to wait until the next day, it would be cheaper. So, I explained to the nice lady that I couldn't get the door open manually. My truck was trapped inside, and Dudette's car would be trapped outside. She agreed the doors can be heavy, but if I got a neighbor to help, we could get it open.
At 5 in the afternoon, that sounds like a plan. At 5 in the morning, I don't think my neighbors would be quite as sympathetic. And, even with getting it open and waiting till the next day, we'd have to park the vehicles outside over night, and one of us would have to take time off to wait on the repair people. So the cost was a trade off; pay me now, or pay me later.
Pay now. Send the guys out.
I also mentioned that the door always hard (heavy) to open, even with the springs. She said that was an adjustment issue and for me to mention it to the guys and they would fix that.
The Bug Guy came and went. Then the repair guys showed up. Two brutes used to lifting very heavy doors, and they couldn't get it open. Since door springs usually last 10K cycles before giving out (that's why they tell you to change them in pairs). They figure the one blew, and the other was just shot. So we were trying to lift the full weight of a double sided, insulated, double wide set of door panels...oh, say, close to 600 lbs.
Not working so well for me.
Anyway, they started doing their thing. And I mentioned how hard the door was to open even with the springs. They evaluated the old springs in comparison to the door, and decided I should go up a level on the springs. When they got to the point of adjusting the springs, they had me open and close the door until I found a point it "could be done with one hand, and not have to put any real strength, or back, into it". After all, Dudette should be able to open it just as easily.
All was good. Dudette was happy with it when she got home as well.
The next day, I got a call at work. Dudette couldn't get the door to close now. It would go down so far, then kick, and go back up. All I could think was, "If I have to call those guys back out....", when it hit me. The opener was set to the tensions and weights of the old springs. The old set up had the weight of the door doing most of the closing. With the new ones, the motor has to "push" the door down. That tricked it into thinking there was an obstruction and the "auto-reverse" safety feature kicked in.
I told her how to adjust it, and life was good again.
Then I laughed. Yesterday, I was trapped IN the garage, with the door closed. Today, she was trapped OUTSIDE the garage, with the door open.
BANG happens.
Wow. Who knew garage doors could be such a pain?? But I guess it's worth it with those automatic things in the car so you don't have to get out in the weather to open/close them!
Posted by: martie | June 14, 2009 at 09:08 AM