A friend of mine had a garage door technician come out today to replace his aging single torsion spring setup with dual torsion springs. What a nightmare it turned out to be! While the spring installation went fine, the technician struggled with repositioning the opener and setting the limits. I was told that the technician primarily worked in commercial settings, not residential, which maybe explains some of the issues.
It seemed like the technician had adjusted the opener's rail geometry, making it even more misaligned than before (which was already incorrect). I was also told he may have tried running the opener while the door was held up with vice grips. My friend walked into the garage to a smoky smell, the technician looking oblivious to what had happened, and an opener that no longer worked.
To make matters worse, the technician had no interest in repairing the old opener. Instead, he doubled down on trying to sell my friend a new one, something he was insisting on before he even started the work I'm told. I'm familiar with that style of opener and regularly visit my friend's garage. It had always sounded and traveled fine compared to most Genie screw drive units I run into.
So, the technician left leaving him with a broken opener and a simple "sorry," which is a whole different issue. I would like to think this wasn't intentional.
I took a look at the unit and found that the start capacitor was way out of specification for both capacitance and ESR, so I replaced it, cleaned and lubricated the screw drive, and started to go through the limit setting process. The unit seemed to be running well, but as I noticed an issue with how the motor was acting and before I could grab a ladder to look the new start capacitor blew loud enough to sound like a gunshot, with a 3-4 foot jet of smoke and black goo shooting out of the vent hole.
That's when I realized the original capacitor had failed for the same reason which I assume was due to the centrifugal switch not disengaging. I can't imagine what would have happened if I had been standing behind the unit when the motor was running. Might have been an ER visit on Christmas Eve.
Just a reminder to always treat equipment with the respect it deserves.
It seemed like the technician had adjusted the opener's rail geometry, making it even more misaligned than before (which was already incorrect). I was also told he may have tried running the opener while the door was held up with vice grips. My friend walked into the garage to a smoky smell, the technician looking oblivious to what had happened, and an opener that no longer worked.
To make matters worse, the technician had no interest in repairing the old opener. Instead, he doubled down on trying to sell my friend a new one, something he was insisting on before he even started the work I'm told. I'm familiar with that style of opener and regularly visit my friend's garage. It had always sounded and traveled fine compared to most Genie screw drive units I run into.
So, the technician left leaving him with a broken opener and a simple "sorry," which is a whole different issue. I would like to think this wasn't intentional.
I took a look at the unit and found that the start capacitor was way out of specification for both capacitance and ESR, so I replaced it, cleaned and lubricated the screw drive, and started to go through the limit setting process. The unit seemed to be running well, but as I noticed an issue with how the motor was acting and before I could grab a ladder to look the new start capacitor blew loud enough to sound like a gunshot, with a 3-4 foot jet of smoke and black goo shooting out of the vent hole.
That's when I realized the original capacitor had failed for the same reason which I assume was due to the centrifugal switch not disengaging. I can't imagine what would have happened if I had been standing behind the unit when the motor was running. Might have been an ER visit on Christmas Eve.
Just a reminder to always treat equipment with the respect it deserves.
