Sunday we went to a friend’s house for lunch and an afternoon playing in the creek. It was fun! We got home around 5:30 or so, and all of us tromped upstairs except Matt, who was looking in the freezer to see if we had any more stick butter.
Monday afternoon, Larry went down to the garage to leave for work. I heard the garage door open and shut, open and shut, open and shut, open and shut. Just as I started down the stairs to ask him what was going on, he stuck his head in the door and said, “Laura? The garage door won’t open!” Great.
I pushed the button to see what was happening, and sure enough, the door would open about an inch, and reverse itself back down to the floor. I watched carefully, and the rail was bending dramatically - not something I’d noticed before. I popped the handle that disconnects the door from the opener, and Larry and I tried to lift the door. Usually, that takes relatively little effort, one person can easily open it. I thought both of us were going to blow a gasket trying to lift the darn thing. There was something bad wrong with the door itself. I had to stand under the door, holding it up while he backed his car out.
Once Larry got out, I let the door down. Let is probably not the right word - it was all I could do to keep it from crashing down like an out of control rocket!
I took a few minutes and did the yearly lube job on it, that should have been done several months ago. It didn’t help. I didn’t really think it would, but the last time the door wouldn’t open, and I called the shop, they lubed it and it worked perfectly. I didn’t want to have to pay them $80 to tell me there wasn’t enough grease.
Anyway, I engaged the opener again, and pushed the button. This time I watched the door itself. As the opener tried to pull the door up, the entire door was bending inward, pulling the rail down as a result. I said, “I’ll be darned - I think the door is actually broken!”
Matt piped up (they had come down by this time to see what all the hubbub was about) and said, “Doesn’t surprise me - it made a horrible noise on Sunday when it closed. Sort of a loud cracking-banging sound.”
I looked at him and said, “You didn’t think to mention it at the time?”
“Uh, no.” He blinked.
So yesterday I called the local Overhead Door company. They told me they’d call this morning between 7:00 and 7:30 to let me know when they’d be here. Argh. They called at 7:06 to tell me they’d be here sometime between 9 and 11. Argh, again.
Too darn early!
LATER: 9:20am
The very nice (very good looking, but who’s noticing?) fella from the door company arrived. He took one look at it and said, “The spring is broken.” He pointed up to the spring at the front of the door, stuck one finger in and showed me the break. Yep. It’s broken! I guess that explains why it was so heavy, huh? He’s going to replace both springs. Thankfully, we won’t need a whole new door this time, but even so, this may put a serious financial crimp in my travel plans for later this summer…
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