I've been dealing with a troubled garage door for 21 years since I bought my house new, as I don't think the builder ever installed it correctly. I have 2 doors, and one I don't use that much as I park my off day "fun" car there. If I didn't open the door for a few days, it would seemingly "stick" to the floor and would open with such violent force, the opener would stop. I'd have to then lower the door, and open it again.
I "solved this" by manually releasing the opener, opening the door a few inches by hand, then closing the door, and hooking the opener up again. Well, after 21 years, it got to the point that it started physically jamming, and would not open more than a few inches. I'd have to pull the door horizontally in each direction a few times, to be able to open the door and back out my car.
When coming back home, sometimes the door would open, sometimes not. I'd have to go in the front door, and fight with the garage door again. I couldn't figure out why it was jamming, and after a few months of this, I'd had enough.
I put out a request on Yelp that went to 7 businesses. Magdiel was the first to respond. I sent the request late Thursday afternoon. Magdiel called me in around 10 minutes, and Friday morning he was at my house to evaluate the door.
He discovered the top of the door was impacting the pulley on the railing. Sometimes the pulley would not be in the way, hence the intermittency of the issue. He said the springs were unbalanced causing the door to shimmy side to side and it would be necessary to replace the springs. However, he suggested that the problem was steeped in an old design of side mounted springs, and that a long term solution would be to have a single spring mounted above the front of the door, rather than 2 side springs, which would eventually unbalance again.
Since my other door was beginning to show similar, tho not even close to as bad symptoms, I ok'd him upgrading both doors. He quoted me a very reasonable price for both doors, plus replacing the rubber seals on the bottom which were severely degraded. He offered to come out Saturday, but I was working, so he came out on Monday.
He arrived right on time. The install went mostly smoothly. He did have to troubleshoot an issue on the first door, but overall, everything went fine. He even banged out a dent on the bottom of the door gratis!
I now have fluidly opening doors again! Very satisfied with the quality and price of the work. He also noticed that my 21 year old openers were rattling and would probably need replacing within a couple of years since an opener has a lifespan of 20-25 years. I'll definitely call Magdiel back out for that.
Magdiel mentioned that he used to work for a big company and has now gone solo. Apparently, I was his first customer with his new venture. Honestly, he responded so fast to my initial request that I didn't even realize that he had no reviews. I was busy trying to respond to the other companies and coordinate everything. But he seemed very knowledgeable during the initial consult, and his price seemed so reasonable, that I gave him the job. Very glad I did. Highly recommended! read more