MikeB wrote:
On Sep 27, 8:10 pm, (Malcolm Hoar) wrote:
In article , MikeB wrote:
About an hour later he came on over and between the two of us we
lifted the door up and moved it until the automatic opener engaged to
hold it in the open position. Fastest $100 I've ever spent (and
probably for the least effort from another person - oh well.
Yeah, but it really sucks having your cars stuck in the
garage!
He quoted me about $1,600 to replace both the 16' and 9' side garage
doors with 24 gauge steel doors. Since that was a lot cheaper than the
original quote from the other guys, I thought I'd take a flyer and go
with this one. The electric opener is quite new and he said it could
be reused.
Sounds like a decent price.
If he screws up I'll just get the
other guys back in - how bad can you screw up garage doors?
He might turn out to be excellent. Good luck, anyway!
Some things to check for off the top of my head:
1. Do the new doors appear to be properly aligned in the frame?
2. Are the tracks *securely* attached to studs or whatever?
3. With the opener disengaged, are the springs balancing
the weight of the doors nicely?
4. Does the opener function smoothly, quietly and without jerking?
If those items are okay, it's probably a sound installation.
OK, I promised y'all an update. 
He actually called me earlier in the week and asked if he could come
over on Thursday (instead of Friday). I said sure. about 10:30
Thursday, still no show so I called him and he said his technician was
on the way (about 20 mins away). The kid himself actually showed with
a rented U-Haul with the doors on it, about an hour later. I guess
talking about a technician makes him seem bigger to himself.
He started working and it seemed a struggle to do it all by himself.
The thing that mainly struck me is that while he seemed to know what
he was doing, he was not experienced in the ways of contractors. He
asked for drinking water and it was one of the very rare occasions
where a contractor asked to use the bathroom. This inexperience became
very marked since he took hours and hours to do the job single-
handedly (one door is a double door 16' wide and the other was a 9'
single door) and at about 7pm he asked for some food - I never
realized the poor kid didn't bring anything to eat. . He damn near
hurt himself when dismantling the 16ft door and he dropped the top
portion with the glass panes in it - glass all over my garage. Also,
he left a lot of the screws lying around, I went around that night and
the next day to try and make sure I retrieve all the discarded screws
and junk so as to not get an accidental flat when parking in the
garage.
The other unwelcome surprise is that he tagged on a $125 removal fee
to dispose of the old doors. From the way he talked, he was going to
take them back to wherever he bought the new doors from andit was a
pass-through charge.
The overall installation seems very solid, I checked all the things
outlined in the above post, and they all seem to be just fine. I also
have a couple of handymen doing some other outside renovation at this
time (deck repairing, painting) and I know the guy who does that quite
well - he is quite good at most jobs around the house - he checked out
the new doors and says they seem very well done. So overall I'm still
kind of ahead with the price.
There are a few niggly things. The old doors had windows, the
replacements don't. The old doors had a latch that one could latch the
doors (and open them with if they were off the opener) - the new one
doesn't have this. More worrying is that the single door that is not
on an opener and has no other egress than through the door has no lock
like the old one used to have - not that we ever in all the time we
lived here locked the door, but still. I mighe invest in a little
latch on the side with a padlock if it ever gets to be an issue. It
seems that he never considered that and didn't look if there were
different models in the shop to accomodate the requirements.
In conclusion, I think he is very inexperienced, but that he does
good workmanship and that I got a good price. My take-away lesson is
to be more careful with the specifications and not simply make a
blanket statement to "replace the doors."
He did tell me there was a 60-day warranty on the installation, but
the trophy here would be if I never have to find out whether he honors
that warranty.
Overall we are OK with the new doors.
You were lucky, and hopefully will remain that way. Sounds like he needs
to hook up with your regular handymen for some mentoring. Seems like a
basically good but clueless kid. Did you ask about contractor license
and insurance? Warranty on the installation is less important than the
warranty on the door itself- will the door company honor that with an
iffy install job?
Asking to use the can on a long job is to be expected- when I had
furnace replaced, I showed the guys where it was when they did the
estimate. Asking for food is pushing it. Panels for a 16-foot door are a
2-man lift, both for safety and to avoid damaging the parts. As you
realized, the lack of windows, the lack of an outside latch, or a lock
on the second door, are due to insufficiently documented requirements.
The 'disposal fee' probably paid for the rented U-haul, which may have
come up at the last minute when the door wholesaler declined to load
them on his pickup truck. (You gotta support the whole length when
hauling stuff like that flat.)
If you do decide to add a lock to second door, and an outside latch to
the main door, you should be able to buy the parts online or at the same
dealer where kid bought the door. They are simple to install, and the
track probably already has the notches for them. A drill and a hole
saw, and a few screws. Just remember not to use opener (or pull the
release pin) if you ever use the manual latch bolt on the door with the
opener.
--
aem sends...