Fixing the Garage Door @Solsticepublish

If you read yesterday’s blog you’ll see that my garage door opener stopped working and an electrician said the wiring was not the problem.  Today the garage door repair person came.  I told him the opener would trip a breaker if plugged in but he had to see for himself.  He didn’t test it on the plug I had checked out.  He tried it on the plug in the garage where my freezer is plugged in.  It tripped the GFI on that unit as well.  There was just one small problem.  That unit did not have a reset button!  I went downstairs and checked the breaker box but nothing was tripped.  I returned to the garage and searched in vain for a reset.  In texting my wife, she insisted that there was one.  I am actually hoping to be wrong on this one and have her come home and just point it out.   It is better to look like a fool than to pay for a new outlet.  Meanwhile the garage door repairman was having trouble figuring out the problem with the opener.  He said to me, “The problem seems to be when you plug it in, the power shuts off.”  Really?  After an hour that’s what you’ve come up with so far?  I knew that when I was dangling from the ladder yesterday!  I told you that before you popped the outlet on my freezer!  So he went to his truck and called his office.  Their solution was to change out all the electrical components of the opener.  Dollar signs flashed in my head.  Then I thought about it.  What choice was there?  I needed it fixed and I certainly had no solution to the problem.  I’m just thanking God that it is bitterly cold out and the freezer won’t thaw during the day.  So I told him to fix it.  After a while he came in and said everything was changed out and working fine.  He showed me how to resent my remotes and open the door manually in the future. (It worked the opposite way of my garage door at my old house.  That was the reason it would not work when I was pulling the cord.  It’s a good thing I waited too because the cord was attached to a little piece of plastic which I would surely have broken by pulling too hard.)  Then it came time for the bill.  I had purposely called this company because they installed the unit when the house was built.  The service man asked, “How long have you lived here?”  I answered, “2 ½ years.”  He looked at his sheet and said, “The parts have a 3 year warranty so all the electrical was free.  It will just cost $65 for the labor.”  My first good news.  The crescendo of the “1812 Overture” was playing in my head as victory was finally mine.  I wrote the check with the bells of triumph still ringing in my ears.  He would have to leave before something happened like his dispatcher saying they were wrong about the warranty.  I handed him the check and he left.  Now if only I could reset the blasted freezer.