Procrastination: chapter 7548

in Reflections4 months ago (edited)

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Procrastination, the silent culprit that tempts us into delaying fixes until a problem demands immediate attention. As a wise Belgian politician once quipped, "Only solve the problem when it occurs." This mindset, while seemingly convenient, often leads to unexpected setbacks. Yesterday evening bore testament to this familiar scenario.

Upon arriving home, the stubborn garage door refused to budge an inch. Every attempt—be it the remote, keypad, or internal switch—signaled an open sesame, but the door remained resolute. This wasn’t the first occurrence; a similar hiccup had troubled us twice before. Initially, it miraculously resolved itself after an hour or so. The second time, I took proactive steps and sought a quote for a new garage door motor. However, since it resumed functioning, we opted to wait a bit longer—a decision we now rue, with the holiday season looming and companies closing shop.

With the recent malfunctions, the motor’s age of 23 years, and the added strain from installing new springs six months ago, we anticipated its eventual demise. But, of course, it chose this inconvenient moment to break down. Adding to the conundrum, the cord for manual operation seems to have vanished into thin air, complicating attempts to bypass the motor.

Our garage isn’t solely a parking spot—it doubles as a storage unit. Yet, it’s my wife’s primary entrance and exit. While inconvenient, she can resort to using the back door. However, the real headache is the electric vehicle charging station positioned on that side. Unfortunately, the cable falls short of sliding beneath another garage door. The solution seems simple—relying on public charging stations—yet, life delights in complexity. My wife, a beta tester for a smart charging app (test only is 2 weeks), finds herself caught in a Murphy's Law-esque sequence of events.

It’s an assortment of inconveniences, none catastrophic but collectively exasperating. This could have been avoided had we replaced the motor in due time. Will I learn from this? Perhaps, though history hints at the contrary.

Sincerely,
Peter

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Ouch, that's horrible. We had an issue with our garage door a while ago, but that was due to the power going out and I was able to open and close it manually. You could just pull the screw out of the arm if you can't find the string for the manual release.

The string is just gone. It appears that there never was one. Now I more or less forced to disamble the complete carrier. Pulling out the screw doesn't help with the setup we have. The carrier would block the door from going open.

Huh, okay. That is interesting. Can you just flip the plastic thing that the string usually attaches to?

It is a little bit more complicated, probably because it is old and ment to work forever :). The carrier is almost like a black box. Inside it is a seperate motor which pulls himself back and forward on the chain. This motor is ofcourse protected. If there was a safety cord present, I would just have to pull this cord which would detach the motor from the chain.
Just give them another call. I will know tomorrow if they can replace it on Friday. If not, it will be for next year.

Ah, okay. Well, good luck with that!

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