Ping Goes the Garage Door

Normally it takes 3 hours driving one way from Plano to Round Rock. But this past Sunday, coming home from our Thanksgiving weekend trip, we spent 5 grueling hours on I-35S. 1 hour of that was spend on a 10 mile stretch.  After we unloaded the car with our luggage, Susan pressed the garage door button to close the garage door behind me. About an hour later, I took the dogs out through the front door so they could relieve themselves. When I turned the corner, I found it odd that the garage door was still open. When I went to close the garage door this time around, I heard a loud PING, but had my back turned to the door so I didn't investigate further because the door fully closed.

The next morning as I was about to head out for work, I pressed the door opener and the door would not lift. Straight above the door I saw that one of the springs was broken. Ugh. I swear, after all long trips, something breaks at the house. I manually unlocked the garage door and lifted the heavy panels so I could pull out our cars.

The same day I was able to get a repair company to come out and fix it. I watched the technician remove and replace two spring coils with blazing speed and ease. With the assistance of his wife handing him tools, he repaired the garage door in 20 minutes. It would have easily taken me 4 hours to figure out what I was doing, and it would have cost me several dollars finding the right tools. Even though it cost nearly $200, it was well worth me not losing a finger attempting the repair.

From now on, I'll remember to spray WD-40 on the coils each year as the old coils became brittle due to them not being greased or maintained. Lesson learned.