Garage Door's Screwy Opener

Opening our garage door was a source of noise induced torture. Hitting the opener button, dashing to the car, and closing the door was the only sure way of avoiding permanent deafness. A little lubricant helped a little, but not much.

We started talking about getting a new garage door opener. We ended up with our current opener because of those magic words on the side of the box, "Quiet Operation". All I have to say is that Genie's definition of "quiet" and my definition of "quiet" are very different. At the time it was a new technological wonder that used a screw drive to open the door. Sounded nice, but in fact, it wasn't so grand. It was never quiet, even when it was first installed. By a professional installer I might add, for all of you who think that I installed it incorrectly.

A couple of days ago the door would occasionally stop part way up, but it would usually open all the way on the next try. Yesterday I got a step ladder and examined the place along the rails and along the screw where it tended to stop. It was stopping close to a seam in the rail and a transition between screw sections. I adjusted the rail slightly to better align it and tried it a couple of times without a problem. I was feeling pretty good about getting it fixed.

My elation was short lived. The next time the garage door went up it stopped at about the same place as before. However, this time it made the most bone jarring racket and I expected parts of the opener to start flying around the garage. Lesley, on the other hand, thought the garage door was going to come completely off its rails and crash on our new Honda. The sound of her scream let me know she was serious. All this took place in about two seconds real time, but it took at least 2 years off my life.

After my blood pressure and pulse rate got below "you're dying" range, I decided that I would need to lift the door manually, so I pulled the cord to release the door from the opener. Crash! The door smashed to the floor and my heart was in bad shape again. How much can an old man take?

That's when I noticed that the right hand coil spring was broken. I don't know how long the spring has been broken, but it might explain why the little imperfections in the rail and screw drive caused it to stop.

We still had to get the car out of the garage, so using my weight lifting knowledge I squatted down, lifted with my legs, put the appropriate grimace on my face, and muscled the door open. I did want to get more exercise in 2008, but I wanted to spread it out over a few months. I backed the car out of the garage and closed the garage door with a thud. My neighbor heard the racket and came over to see if we were all right. He was probably praying, "Lord, don't let them be dead. Don't let them be dead." as he was walking across the street.

The repairman was called today and the door is now working normally. Loud and without stopping, like a politician.

I'm still going to get a new opener, and it won't be a "quiet" screw drive mechanism. I'm leaning toward an "ultra whisper quiet" belt drive mechanism. Yeah, right.