The Home Ownership Thread

[HRoi]

Anyone here have experience with side-mount garage door openers? After the recent unpleasantness, an opener without the easily exploited emergency release which also automatically deadbolts the door is quite appealing.

I have one - i installed it to accommodate the headroom required by a vehicle lift. I don’t know if you have specific questions, but there’s no downside to them that i can see - better packaging, looks better tucked out of the way, more headroom as mentioned, it even seems to function quieter and smoother (tbf my old top mount had a track that shook and shuddered, maybe that was just an alignment issue)

 

[sugarbutch]

I have one - i installed it to accommodate the headroom required by a vehicle lift. I don’t know if you have specific questions, but there’s no downside to them that i can see - better packaging, looks better tucked out of the way, more headroom as mentioned, it even seems to function quieter and smoother (tbf my old top mount had a track that shook and shuddered, maybe that was just an alignment issue)

That's the sort of thing I was looking for. Which one did you get, and how much was it installed?

 

[jack webb]

Nearly 15 years in this house and the lightbulb in the master shower finally died. I think that was the last of the lights inside the house left from when we bought it.

I don’t think I’ve changed any of the exterior lights on the back of the house (though I also rarely ever turn those ones on).

Lightbulbs are like that. Everybody has a bulb in their home that they're always changing, and another they cannot remember ever having changed. The memoryless property of the exponential distribution in action.

 

[HRoi]

That's the sort of thing I was looking for. Which one did you get, and how much was it installed?

LIftmaster 8500W, and IIRC it was $2200 in 2018. Not 100% sure about the cost, the garage guy didn’t do the best job itemizing the lift install with other work that was done.

 

[PhilKenSebben]

Anyone here have experience with side-mount garage door openers? After the recent unpleasantness, an opener without the easily exploited emergency release which also automatically deadbolts the door is quite appealing.

YES!

easy to install (have done 3 myself) powerful, convenient, quiet. Love them, will always have one from now on!

 

[HRoi]

powerful, convenient, quiet

Oddly enough, this is also a perfect description of me in the sack

 

[PhilKenSebben]

Oddly enough, this is also a perfect description of me in the sack

The smaller package overall is a definite description of you

 

[sugarbutch]

YES!

easy to install (have done 3 myself) powerful, convenient, quiet. Love them, will always have one from now on!

I hadn't considered self-install (what am I, a peasant?), but that's an interesting thought. The garage door company will almost certainly quote me some larcenous rate for their labor.

 

[brokencycle]

I hadn't considered self-install (what am I, a peasant?), but that's an interesting thought. The garage door company will almost certainly quote me some larcenous rate for their labor.

We recently had our garage door spring break (it was a torsion spring thankfully), and my wife called a place and they came out the next day and fixed it. I asked her, so that was like $600, right? Turns out it was ~$2000. Now, they did wind up replacing all the track and basically everything but the door and the actual opener, but it felt like highway robbery.

Then again, at least I didn't have risk certain death with garage door components (or worse be seen as a peasant who works on his own garage door).

 

[greekgeek]

We recently had our garage door spring break (it was a torsion spring thankfully), and my wife called a place and they came out the next day and fixed it. I asked her, so that was like $600, right? Turns out it was ~$2000. Now, they did wind up replacing all the track and basically everything but the door and the actual opener, but it felt like highway robbery.

Then again, at least I didn't have risk certain death with garage door components (or worse be seen as a peasant who works on his own garage door).

That's like a $300-400 job here for the springs fwiw. At least it was when we did it a couple years back, probably more now.

 

[Michigan Planner]

This reminds me of how our contractor got a code-required property-line firewall for our deck up on top of a 9' retaining wall. They built it on the ground, and then apparently called everyone they knew to come help lift it up onto the wall. I counted ten guys!

Didn't realize there were many Amish barn-raising crews out in your area!

Lightbulbs are like that. Everybody has a bulb in their home that they're always changing, and another they cannot remember ever having changed. The memoryless property of the exponential distribution in action.

Plot twist: Bulb I replaced it with "died" almost immediately. At first I figured maybe the bulb was too powerful and got too hot in that enclosed space (I was lazy and just grabbed an exterior-type low wattage floodlight from a box in the garage instead of going to the store). Yesterday, I finally made it to the store and bought another bulb, got it home and screwed it in, and nothing. After poking around a bit, I noticed that the fixture is sort of loose in the can and I reach in and turn that until it tightens up, re-install the replacement bulb and voila! I have light! On a whim, I go out to the garage and grab the original bulb which hadn't made it to the trash yet and reinstall that and it still works!

Somehow the base had just gotten loose over the years.

We recently had our garage door spring break (it was a torsion spring thankfully), and my wife called a place and they came out the next day and fixed it. I asked her, so that was like $600, right? Turns out it was ~$2000. Now, they did wind up replacing all the track and basically everything but the door and the actual opener, but it felt like highway robbery.

Then again, at least I didn't have risk certain death with garage door components (or worse be seen as a peasant who works on his own garage door).

I had a spring break on my garage door 13 or 14 years ago and we replaced the entire system for about $600. Wife's garage door opener literally imploded a couple years ago (according to the little plate on it, it had been installed in 1981!) and we had a new opener and springs and everything installed for about $750, including new tracks.

Also... today I learned that side mounted openers are a thing! I had no idea that existed.

 

[Gibonius]

We recently had our garage door spring break (it was a torsion spring thankfully), and my wife called a place and they came out the next day and fixed it. I asked her, so that was like $600, right? Turns out it was ~$2000. Now, they did wind up replacing all the track and basically everything but the door and the actual opener, but it felt like highway robbery.

Then again, at least I didn't have risk certain death with garage door components (or worse be seen as a peasant who works on his own garage door).

Garage door springs are no joke. One of my uncles lost an eye to one of those hell-springs.

 

[sugarbutch]

We recently had our garage door spring break (it was a torsion spring thankfully), and my wife called a place and they came out the next day and fixed it. I asked her, so that was like $600, right? Turns out it was ~$2000. Now, they did wind up replacing all the track and basically everything but the door and the actual opener, but it felt like highway robbery.

Then again, at least I didn't have risk certain death with garage door components (or worse be seen as a peasant who works on his own garage door).

A few months ago we heard a big bang in the house, but we couldn't figure out what it was. Soon after, the garage door opener was struggling to open the door, and it was then that I realized that one of the springs had failed. I think it cost us $700 to get the springs replaced. The installer advised us to spray the springs with WD40 every six months to keep them from binding, something we definitely weren't told when the door was installed originally. (And clearly the guy is not a cyclist, because he would have advised waxing the springs instead of using a conventional lube...)

 

[PhilKenSebben]

I hadn't considered self-install (what am I, a peasant?), but that's an interesting thought. The garage door company will almost certainly quote me some larcenous rate for their labor.

Truly, installing one of these took me about 30 total minutes. Easy and straight forward, couple screws, I needed a piece of scrap wood as a spacer and some attachments t screws. Eaaaasy if you have enough bar sticking out of the side

 

[RedLantern]

We recently had our garage door spring break (it was a torsion spring thankfully), and my wife called a place and they came out the next day and fixed it. I asked her, so that was like $600, right? Turns out it was ~$2000. Now, they did wind up replacing all the track and basically everything but the door and the actual opener, but it felt like highway robbery.

Then again, at least I didn't have risk certain death with garage door components (or worse be seen as a peasant who works on his own garage door).

You think that's bad, just wait till your toilet flapper goes out . . .