This is my latest experience with a home repair.
In our current house we have a Wayne-Dalton garage door. In our last house we had a Wayne-Dalton Garage door. What did these houses have in common other than a WD garage door? They were built by tract home builders.
There is another thing these doors had in common. I only know what kind of door they had because I have had to replace the springs on both of them.
Who is the first person you call when you need to replace garage door springs? Usually the company that has their phone number on the door. Usually that's the installer. or in my case, Wayne Dalton.
So why should you care or why do I care enough to write about it.
Well on this recent occasion I had a reason to question what the guy from Wayne Dalton told me.
Usually when my garage door springs break, they come out and fix them in one visit. The cost if I remember correctly is a bit less than $300.
Not this time. This time when the single spring broke (not a Wayne Dalton Torquemaster spring), the door strength was compromised. The garage door opener, instead of pulling the door up started to pull it in. About a foot before the Genie Door Opener stopped and reversed. Being that the door was the original door, installed in 1996, you could no longer buy a single panel to replace it. The diagnosis by the technician. The whole door would be need to be replaced. And by the way, so will the opener. Your opener has a stripped gear and while it working now it may be a day or a year but it will fail. And since that opener is as old as your door you can no longer buy the part needed to fix it. I will have the sales department call you on Monday and give you a quote.
So Monday morning I get a call from Sean at Wayne-Dalton and we negotiate a price. New door, new opener installed for about $1400. But, do to unfortunate circumstances we can't install it till next Monday.
So in the interim I was telling one of my friends the story when he asked me if I had a Home Warranty? Well, it just so happens that I do. The reason why I will cover in another post. So, I look at my contract and low and behold, it covers not only the opener but springs as well.
So I file a claim online and within an hour I get a call from the warranty company. I should also add it was around 8PM so that was pretty good.
The next day a women from Legends Garage Door in Phoenix calls me. She tells me she can get a person out the next day (Friday) and he will either fix or give me a quote on the door.
While I have her on the phone I ask her how much it will cost if she needs to replace the door and or the opener. Her price is about $150 more than Wayne-Dalton. But is it? Melissa gave me a lot of advice as well. She said if you do buy their door don't get the Wayne Dalton springs. She also told me not to get the Genie Garage door opener. In Sean's defense he also tried to sell me the Liftmaster opener. It was me who wanted the Genie because the other door is a Genie.
I call Sean back and get a quote for the WD Door and Liftmaster opener. Still cheaper than Legends but only $100. Sean also said I could get regular door springs for no extra cost.
Now it's Friday and Dean from Legends shows up as promised. He looks at the door and says that for $100 he can put on two steel braces that will fix the rigidity of the top panel. The springs, covered by the home warranty.
Less than an hour after he showed up my door was fixed and worked even better than it did before the spring broke. No more sagging door like before. He also changed the angle of the bracket that pulls the door open so it starts by pulling up instead of out. The original install was not done properly.
So now on to the opener. We still had the gear problem. The opener is covered by the warranty as well. Turns out that you can no longer get the part so they replaced the opener as well. I did pay for the upgrade that includes a belt drive, internet gateway and some other cool stuff. The Liftmaster 8550. Total Cost with the door supports, opener upgrade and warranty deductible, $366.22. Not the $1400 or so dollars that Wayne-Dalton wanted.
So not the usual quick fix and business as usual that I'm used to. If not for this sequence of events I would still be as happy and ignorant as usual.
But what does all this have to do with Torquemaster Springs? Well, in the opinion of more than a few people they are junk. I told another friend this story and he told me about his door spring ordeal. Once again Wayne-Dalton springs, another door repair company and his replacement of WD Springs.
He then started noticing garage door repair trucks in his neighborhood often. WD springs are like printer ink. Sell the doors to builders really cheap and have a reliable source of income replacing springs every 3 or 4 years. It cost my friend $500 to replace his springs because he converted them but now they should last about 10 years, the average lifespan of normal door springs.
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