So I backed my car into the closed garage door Sunday night. Ugghhh! I felt very sheepish. I called three neighbors to help me brainstorm a solution, not only how to get it open so I could get my cars out, but also how to fix the door. Two came over so I had a plan to execute the next night (when my family would be able to take the noise, etc.) The third one recommended Matt Betts of this Emerson Garage Door company. I called and left a message.
The company called back the next morning, scheduled a 1:00 appointment, and Matt sized things up quickly, improving on my plan. He wanted to start then, but with a day sleeper in the home, I had to wait until evening. He blew me away when he said, "I'll come back then. And we'll get it *all* done. I've seen doors in worse condition than this." Very encouraging!
Sure enough, we were on it at 7:30 PM. In just a little over 5 minutes, he had the door open. I immediately pulled the 2 cars out. Nice!
Then he set to work re-bracing the inside of the door, which pulled the bulge back very nicely without having to do any pushing on it from the outside. (So no cracks or paint peeling happened!) At one point, his creativity and experience really came into play: he removed the bent "cross strut" (I don't know the technical name for it), hammered it back into shape as much as possible, then put it at the top of the door. He took that top cross strut off first of course, which was undamaged, and put it at the level where he had taken off the bent "cross strut". Wa la!! It was the work of a master, in my opinion. All within 45 minutes. Seriously.
I was willing to pay any reasonable price over and above normal (given the off-hours work and his immediate response), but he didn't want to charge me more than his usual rates.
I am one happy "garager"/camper! Thank you, Matt and your family-owned company!
P.S. If he hadn't been able to fix it, I would have been in a tight spot, because he told me the lead time to get a complete door replacement is 12-18 months. Sobering...
Keith read more