Update on the Garage Door! (Y’all can get off those pins and needles now.)

It’s really, really broken.

I sure do appreciate all your tips that came through! I did finally go out in my garage and take a look-see, armed with your imported knowledge as well as the Craftman’s owner’s manual. I even got out some tools and a ladder and some oil and greased the chain, so to speak, squinting around the moving parts and eying them like I had any idea what I was looking for.

I can say that I now know more about garage door openers than I have ever wanted to know. Which, truthfully, isn’t saying a whole lot.

After I determined that, yup, it’s still broken, some dear friends very kindly offered to come over and see what they might be able to do. Paul took off the cover to the motor to have a look-see for himself.

The consensus? Yep, it’s broken all right.

I’ve written before about our Home Warranty, so I’ll save my breath on reiterating the pros and cons of having one. Suffice to say, it’s (hopefully) pulling through on this as it does cover the garage door opener.

You see this gear? (The big white thing on top?)

That’s what you call stripped. When Josh the garage door fixer-guy came out, he had barely walked up to the garage before he started shaking his head. (I had gone ahead and left the cover off the motor.)

“We just had a whole shipment of these gears brought in first of the week and I already went up and used them all.”

I could almost hear the tsk-tsk.

Apparently, this happens a lot during the winters: when it gets cold, the grease thickens up and the door has to work harder, putting more strain on the motor, putting more strain on that gear up there…

According to Josh, this gear is the most common repair problem they get. They cost $160 a pop, which isn’t much less than what you could get a whole new garage door opener for from Lowe’s. (Plus labor, of course.)

According to Josh, the home warranties like to repair when it’s less than $200, and replace when it’s more than $200. The garage door is just over ten years old — they really don’t like to last a whole lot longer than that. But that’s the problem with Home Warranties: They will nickle and dime you to death with the service calls and it’s like pulling teeth to get them to finally replace whatever it is that keeps breaking.

But I said I wasn’t going to go there.

“Josh” is going to do his best to write creatively on the service order to see if he can’t get the warranty company to go ahead and replace the opener instead of just ordering a new gear. I have found that it helps to be very congenial, kind and appreciative toward these guys who come out on these repair jobs, because they are your voice and advocate between you and the warranty.

Not that it’s an act. I totally respect the specialized work these guys do and their expertise. It’s people like them and the small businesses they work for that are the core of what keeps this country together.

But I digress.

If Josh is successful in his dealings with the warranty company, he will come back and replace it with a brand-new “Genie” garage door opener — which, according to him, is a $355 value. It would be really, really nice to be able to say that we have a brand-new garage door opener come time to put this house up for sale about a year from now.

If he’s not successful, he’ll just be coming with a new gear. And it’s very possible we’ll have another $70 service call on this door before our time here is done. Cross your fingers.