Yeah. The springs on a garage door can kill you or fuck you up in a big way. I will do a ton of DIY, but won’t touch a garage door. $0.02
I have never replaced one but something happened and we had to re spring one of the springs. it took me and my dad, 2 average 6ft 200lb guys and it was sketchy as fuck.
This. 100% this. If you're cool with being dead or missing limbs, go ahead. Otherwise, call a garage door guy.
I will second what is said above. A professional will come in and remove the old door and put up a new one while hooking up your garage door opener correctly all in under half a day. If you do it yourself it will take two days, you will fuck up the install at least twice and could really injure yourself. Some things are best left to someone who does it everyday.
My Maytag Neptune front load washing machine died on me today, the drum stopped spinning. This thing got ungodly loud when running cycles, so I’m assuming it was on its way out anyway. It came with the house I bought (built in 2001, washer is probably about as old) so I’m not super broken up about it. Currently looking at getting a new washer (electric, not gas) within the next couple days; considering an LG or a Samsung front load. I’ve heard horror stories with Samsung from some people, but reviews online seem solid. LG just seems to have solid reviews overall. Anyone have any experience with either?
We bought an LG top loader last year and have been happy with it. Top loaders have a bigger tub which is handy when washing bedding, or a huge load of towels, etc. Also, top loaders won't have nearly as much mold issues. I dont know of anyone who's had a front loader that didn't fight a constant battle keeping mold from growing. We looked at Samsung's as well, but the LG's had a higher reliability rating on consumer reports.
@Nettdata @wexton @Rush-O-Matic @Puffman These are the unknowns I need to know about. Now that being said... I don't know if all spring systems are created equally. Ours does not look like the one in the video or like what you guys are describing. I think we have what is called a torsion system? Here are some pics of our current door. Is it all the same shit at the end of the day? Definitely leaning hard towards professional installation now. Thank you so much for your input. Spoiler Edit: I'm reading more now on this link, and they specifically mentioned risk of injury with torsion springs... https://www.clopaydoor.com/residential/buyingguide/garage-door-spring-system Blech.
Yup those are the danger ones. See the right hand side there the silver end cap with what looks like four holes? Well to tension that up, you have to put a bar in it, and rotate it around enough to get the next hole to put your bar in.
Yep. Those will fuck you up, bro. They're about $75 for the spring and the tool. Your local "Bob's Garage Doors" guy will probably do it for $200 - $250. My garage has two doors. Both springs have broken in the 18 years I've live in the house. One about 5 years ago, and one last year. The one last year was $225. Don't call the handy man or the guy that can do it all. Call the garage door people. It's in and out in about 30 minutes. Also, I have replace my control panel in one opener myself, and repaired one of the sensors. As mentioned before, I will tackle any DIY on my house or truck, but that spring is a big nope. It's a big piece of metal bending back and forth over and over. It's going to break eventually, just like a coat hanger. But, after the first one broke, the garage door guy said to make sure I spray the spring, track and guides with WD-40 twice a year. So, the life is supposedly about 7 year average, and after starting my WD-40 program, the second one lasted 16+ years. YMMV
It does not matter whether it’s a torsion or spring system, there is enough force to easily lift a hundreds of pounds heavy door. Same force, different mechanics. There is no safe garage door system for the untrained. $0.02
My spidey senses were tingling for good reason. Thanks for the insight guys. I figured if in our small town there were 2+ businesses that specialize in it, there must be a reason...
I think I've done a fairly good job on here of documenting my poor decision making skills. And I estimate I've only shared about half the shit that's happened to me in total. The fact I've made it to 31 is a testament only to the power of the human body to recover from injury. That being said, there is absolutely no way in fuck I'd ever even think about touching a garage door, either to repair or install. I don't care what kind it is. If I had a garage (I don't), I wouldn't even wanna watch the repair guy for fear of something breaking loose and getting an involuntary limb amputation just for funsies.
Well i should of known better. What started out as a nice simple project turned to shit quickly as always. My MIL took my kids on a holiday, so we decided to paint there rooms because when we moved in 3 years ago we just left them, so lets make there rooms a little more there own. And while we were there lets change out the baseboards because no 2 rooms are the same, and it drives me nuts. Well every time they went to paint it seemed like they changed baseboards and went a half in higher and just left a paint line and chalking on the wall. So now i spent 4 hours yesterday scrapping and shit so tonight i have mud and sand it flat.
Oh shit! Sorry you're having to fix that. Is that a hired job you're fixing? We are about to do that same project ourselves... total facelift on the downstairs with fresh paint, baseboards, floors.
It’s not the work. It’s taking longer near the end because you’re stopping staring at it and over and over saying “Is it perfect? Is it perfect? Is it perfect?” At least your finishing it. You want a hilarious story: I was at a friend’s house and his dad was such a lazy DIY idiot, and he abondined a basement project leaving his drill still stuck in the wall. I thought it was a joke. My friend said with complete seriousness “Mom says he got frustrated and just stormed out of the room screaming ‘fuck’ over and over. That was four weeks ago.”
One of the most DIY friendly projects these days is replacing your floors with vinyl plank or other click in planks. There's a locally owned home improvement store that sells flooring: Mannington Adura Max is their main product line sold. It's supposed to be a superior flooring that is water/scratch/impact resistant. It has some kind of backing on it and you're not supposed to have to lay down anything before installation. It looks very nice in person and the store uses it so I was able to see it and walk on it. On the other hand, the big box stores sell flooring options that are about half-60% the cost but I think I would have to use a roll of some kind of underlayment. I am also not crazy about the look of some of the less expensive options seen at HD. Not surprisingly....they look cheap. I'm sure some of you have tackled a project like this. I'm having trouble evaluating these different products. Has anyone used Mannington's Adura Max? Do you really not need an underlayment, and were you happy with the finished project. Alternately, if anyone else has upgraded their flooring with a different product (especially something found at Home Depot since that's what we have here), I would love to hear your experiences. We have dogs so scratch resistance is important, and I am hoping to eventually have this done in all areas so it needs to be water resistant for the bathrooms, laundry and kitchen. While I would prefer to have a material such wood plank look tile, real hardwood, or bamboo, the installation for those would pose a problem for us. I expect reasonable durability and life -- no desires to redo a project of this size in several years. (though this project is a little bigger since the upgrade is way overdue and we are also doing trimwork and paint this go around). Any advice is appreciated!
Good news is that the kitchen is 100% done. No touch ups needed, not this or that. 100% fucking done. The possibly very bad news is that the condensation drain for the AC unit cracked and leaked a shit ton of water under the hardwood floors*. I walked down the hallway last night noticed the board edges looked a little swollen. Upon closer examination you could see the sheen of moisture between the planks. If I walked around some areas, I could make water come up through some planks. We fixed the condensation drain, put a fan on the boards and crossing our fingers. If it buckles the floor or warps, I don't know what we're going to do. That floor is discontinued and covers the hallway, office, entry way, dining room and kitchen. Not too mention that it's a real MF'er to take out. I had to remove 2 strips for the kitchen remodel and it took me about an hour. (in the fan pic, you can see how some of the edges are darker. That's where the planks are swollen) *They're 3/8" thick engineered hardwood floors. aka plywood with a fancy prefinished face
That is some dam good engineered hardwood at 3/8 thick. Engineered hardwood is almost better because you will never had warping/movement with the plywood backing.