Question:
We were given a garage door opener, from Sears, as a Chistmas
present in 1996. Last week, on election day, with a pouring rain,
it failed. We had to walk about 3/4 of a mile to the polls and
back got soaked.
We phoned Sears immediately. The best they could do was to
give us an appointment the next morning. We notice ther garage
door sales and service places in town. Is it possible we could
have gotten quicker service from one of them? It cost 80 + bucks,
the warranty had expired. Would service from anybody else, if
available, have been cheaper or more expensive.
Answer:
My garage door opener has a manual lever thingie that can be used in
just a situation and it releases the spring I think.Then you can raise
the door. This if for times such as the power being out. I'd think
yours would too, as it's not that old. In fact I would have thought
that would be a safety requirement.
Our garage door opener does have a strap and handhold hanging down
which is supposed to open the door manually if the power fails.
However, we had tried to run the door up and down a few times,
with limited success, and the whole mechanism kind of fell apart,
a belt came off and dangled down, etc. The hand opener wouldn't
work at all, and just raising the door as we used to be able to
before the opener also didn't work, even with the power off.
We have good rain gear, the trip to the polls was kind of a
challenge, and we are both pretty good walkers. Just lucky to be
close to the polling place.
We are luckier than a friend, whose Sears garage door opener
fell right off, denting her car, The thing has been a blessing,
up to now.
