Spring Cleaning and the Garage Door, Part II

Tonight I tried to close the overhead garage door. Unfortunately, the garage door would not close. Each time I pressed the opener; the door would slowly roll down, reach the half way point and then reverse itself. It did this several times. I had avoided the garage since Thursday, when I knew that something was wrong with the door. Avoidance is not courageous in the least. In fact, it is quite the punk out. Yes, it’s intimidating being a single woman.

Now, I was forced to work on the door in the cold and the dark. I realized that if the door was up and would not drop, I could always disengage it and let gravity do the work. So, I began looking at obvious problems. Was there a wheel off track? Is the electronic eye breaking? (I cleaned them off with my hand.) Is there too much grease on the track? (I rubbed down the tracks.) Each time I would do something, I would run back and press the opener to see if the problem was fixed and each time the door would come down half way, hesitate and reverse direction.

How many times did I push the button in hopes that the door would go down all the way? Too many! So, I backed my car out of the garage, thinking that if the door stuck or went off track, it would be better for that to happen with the car outside of the garage rather than inside. I then took my purse and things inside the house and ran back out as if I knew what I was going to do. So, I pressed the garage opener one last time and it finally went down all the way. But, it did not go down with out a fight. An inch from the floor, the door hesitated and I held my breath until it groaned to a close.

This is the problem with home ownership. Not everything can be fixed with a good scrubbing and duct tape. Sometimes, an expert has to be called in to diagnose and fix what I cannot. So, in the end, it wasn’t cleaning that the garage door needed, it was a new opener. Enough said.