Well, I’m not bragging. No, really. Because it was more a week of attempted repairs at Nogglestead.
The Garage Door Opener
Our garage door opener stopped working a week ago Friday. When I got back from the warehouse store, I tried to open it to bring the groceries in from an outside vehicle (as my beautiful wife took the garaged vehicle to work), but it only went half way up, and then it was stuck. Pressing the button further just led it to do a little vertical cha-cha. So I headed to YouTube. It might have been a setting on the box. It might have been the capacitor.
So I had recently seen the face of a fellow I know on the bathroom wall at the YMCA. We’d trained together at the dojo, and he had been in garage doors for a national department store that has fallen on hard times. He was grinning from an 8.5″ by 11″ ad for a local-sounding garage door company now, and I noted it. So I thought of his company repairing it. But, of course, his phone number is in the upstairs restrooms at the YMCA, and I was home. Oh, gentle reader, I wanted that number immediately, and I didn’t have time to get in a workout to get it. So I did some Internet sleuthing. I hit the company Web site, but the telephone number looked…. different. I have had some traffic in the Internet lead generation industry, and I didn’t want my former dojo-mate to have to pay money to contact me. So I pieced together his number from Yelp photos showing various people beside his truck, and had him come out.
Ah! Oh, but gentle reader, I might be slipping into extra old man curmudgeon phase of my life, but: He came to estimate a complete installation for a different brand of garage door opener, not to diagnose and repair a twenty-year-old unit. So we swapped stories a bit, and I verbally agreed to a bid on a new unit, but I was a bit conflicted on it. I mean, it seems that every company for every thing now sends someone out to bid $1000 to replace something that’s fixable. Because I guess one does not advance in the world without capitalizing on opportunities and making the most money from them. So a poorly seated and sealed garbage disposal must lead to a $1000 replacement and not a $100 service call plus $30 new gasket and mounting by someone with experience instead of the son and grandson and great-grandson of men of competence who’s trying to do manly things on his own.
But I was of two minds: Capacitors are $20 to $25 on the Internet, but most of them would not arrive until Friday, and we were on the schedule for Thursday. I could order the part from the manufacturer for $25 and it would arrive in about 3 days, so I did. But then I agonized about fixing it and canceling the appointment if I did fix it. After all, I gave my word to someone I knew, sort of. Perhaps someone who would not extend me the same courtesy. The part shipped and was due to arrive on Thursday, and the install was delayed until Friday, which gave me the chance to swap the capacitors, and…. Not fixed. So we got a new garage door opener on Friday afternoon.
But! When they finished, they handed me a single remote, and that’s not what I agreed to. I had agreed to a unit that came with two remotes and a keypad. But they’d mistakenly installed a lesser unit which came, as part of the package, with but a single remote and no keypad. So the installer called the boss(es) to see what happened, and apparently the installer had misread the order and brought the wrong unit. He offered his boss to eat the cost of the difference and to come back later with the upgraded model (the two lightbulb version). But I didn’t need the second light bulb, and I didn’t really need the keypad, so we agreed I’d pay for the lesser unit and get an extra remote and we’d be square.
But! Now I wonder if the upgraded unit had a bigger motor that I need for a larger insulated door. I think they would have mentioned it, and the owner had quoted me for the smaller unit, so probably not. And, of course, I later wondered if the installer was trying to scam me by trying to install the lesser unit and charge me for the bigger one. Again with the curmudgeonery–it had been only a day since the last time I was the sliced meet in some one else’s grift. There are two reasons we haven’t had more work done around Nogglestead: One, tearing the house apart for anything agitates my wife, and two, I’m always worried about getting scammed (which has come true, sort of: When we paid our gutter installer by check drawn on an inactive and dormant account which had just enough for a gutter installation, suddenly another woman had a set of checks for that account and was writing them, and they all bounced because we emptied the account after paying for the gutter installation). I hope you enjoy my tales of my own neuroses more than I like having them, gentle reader. And when we moved to southwest Missouri, I wanted to trust people more than when I lived in the city, but that’s worn off.
And! I had the installers leave the old unit to see if I could fix it and donate it to the Habitat for Humanity ReStore (despite my last experience donating there). So it sits in the middle of the garage that I’m trying to clean/organize awaiting my attention. I think a proper over/under on when I deal with it (likely by dismantling it further and throwing it out) to three years, but Las Vegas oddsmakers might put it higher.
The dryer. Again.
Last Saturday, after I had taken out the garage door opener capacitor and ordered the replacement, the dryer stopped tumbling. Well, it had probably stopped earlier in the day, but my oldest complained about towels not drying that afternoon, and I discovered it was not tumbling. Fortunately, I had a wheels-and-belts kit on hand since the belt had squeaked briefly some weeks before. So I tore it all apart, and…
…Nico fixed it.
Well, no, Nico got his claw caught in the back of the drum compartment.
As I replace the belt and wheels a couple of times a year, it seems, I didn’t even have to go to YouTube for a refresher course.
The belt was frayed, and one of the wheels had stopped turning and had an indention worn on it. I vacuumed it out, and….
But the kits are, erm, Chinesium. The tolerances are quite broad. I’ve had replacement wheels which do not fit the spindles; I’ve had replacement wheels that spin freely on the spindles (the ideal); I’ve had wheels that fit on the spindles but do not spin freely (as in the kit I had on hand). So I only replaced the one wheel that was worn and hoped for the best. And when it came time to replace the belt…. Well, this belt was different from the one it replaced. But the one in the kit was the part number you get on the Whirlpool Web site, but it was much tighter than the last. So much so that I could barely fit it through the tension belt and onto the motor. And when I got the drum and front panel installed, the dryer sounded different. Noisier. I think that the tension wheel might have actually been rubbing on the drum, but it was working, so it would do until I ordered another kit and another weekend came around for me to tear it apart again.
Over the course of the week, the sound has gotten intermittent, so perhaps the belt is stretching a little. Which is good, because I have not actually ordered the replacement kit yet. But I should. I like to have one on hand. Like I have springs/shocks on hand for the washing machine: Parts that are known to fail and have failed at Nogglestead before.
My wife remarked that her parents didn’t have this problem often. I have to wonder if it’s because things are built junk now, if it’s because we run our laundry machines much more than normal families (three to five loads on a normal day, and sometimes more), if it’s because the replacement parts are junk, or if it’s because I buy the cheap laundry equipment because I expect it to fail early and don’t want expensive things to fail. Probably a combination thereof.
Although the dryer is starting to sound a little more normal after a week–perhaps the belt is stretching a bit or the tension wheel’s metal arm is not quite as stiff. But I cannot count this as a “fix” as much as a temporary abayment.
The laptop battery (apparently, again)
My wife asked me to look at her laptop. The case was separating at the bottom of the case. “Oh, it’s the battery,” I said, and I watched a bit of a YouTube video to see how to do it, and I went to Amazon to order one….
Only to discover I had already purchased such a battery in 2019. So I ordered it again, and it came on Friday. I did the quick swap, and the laptop booted up and has yet to burn the house down. So I finally got a win in the repair department for the week.
Still to come: The gumball machine
I bought a gumball machine sometime in my estate-sale-for-Ebaying days. As I was also attending video game auctions, I was toying with the idea of a vending machine route.
I picked up this little decorative gumball machine at an estate sale for $35 because it kinda fell into that range of purchases, and because it had some coins rattling around in it. I thought the coins, especially if they were silver, might mitigate the purchase price and make an Ebay sale more profitable. As it turned out, the machine contained about fifty pennies, and the machine was not collectible at all, so it went from Casinoport to Old Trees to Nogglestead without a scratch or breakage from the boys. But it was in a corner downstairs and never had gumballs in it. So it never really drew their attention, although the youngest wanted a vending machine of his own and bought a used one at Relics a couple years ago which he filled with gumballs, emptied, and put in his closet. Like father, like son.
But the kittens discovered it, apparently, one night, as it lay on its side with its globe smashed.
I cleaned it up and then thought what to do with it. I thought about breaking it down and storing it, but the base does not break down at all. So it sat without a globe for a number of months until I priced replacement globes on Amazon. I found an unbreakable acrylic one for $25 and ordered it. It’s due to arrive today, and hopefully the standard size fits.
I’m hoping to take my success rate over the last week to 50%. I’m no Luis from Sesame Street, that’s for sure. And I’m not my father, either.
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