Well my most ambitious “Do It Yourself” project to date was installing a new screw drive garage door opener to replace the antique that burned out last week as Karen went to go for a workout.
We drove down to Home Depot and picked up their top of the line Genie. This thing is pretty neat. It has a screw drive and is probably half as noisy as the old one. It would be even less noisy, except when opening it has “Excelerator Technology”. Basically that is the marketese for “it opens twice as fast as it closes”. When it first opened, it was so fast that I thought I had adjusted the tension wrong and it was going to jump the track, but no it just always opens the door in about 8s.
Installing it was a chore. The ceiling is very low, and the header bracket would not fit. The old one would not quite fit the rail, hence the term “hack”. I broke out a hack saw and remove part of the I-beam to get the interface to fit. Then of course the motor landed right between the two studs, hence the “erector-set” contraption to mount it to the ceiling. Of course the “saf-t-beam” units had to be drilled into concrete and I shorted a wire while stapling it to the wall. But all those minor set backs aside, we finally have quite a neat little door opener and one that I hope won’t fall off the ceiling or break anytime soon.