Olive has discovered a fun game to play while I make the bed. She jumps on the bed and hides under the covers. Her crazy polydactyl claws get stuck .
Last Thursday, I had a dental appointment to get my teeth cleaned. An hour before my appointment the power went out.
I checked my iphone and the power company predicted power would be restored in four hours. They didn’t give the cause.
I called the dental office to let them know I couldn’t get my car out of the garage because the power was out.
The receptionist told me to pull the red cord and then I could manually lift the garage door. I hung up, pulled the red cord, but couldn’t lift the garage door. So I asked my husband to try.
“No. I’m not going to mess with the garage door,” he said. He wanted to leave well enough alone and wait for the power to go on. “Just call them and reschedule,” he said.
The dentist was able to swap my appointment with somebody on Monday morning. It was all good.
A neighbor called us and said she was at the hair dresser and would we please go to her house and invite her husband over. He had been walking their dog when the power went out. He was sitting freezing in the back yard with their dog. He had exited the locked house through the garage and without power, the buttons to open the garage door were worthless.
The wife said she asked him to come over to our house, but he didn’t want to be a bother. My husband returned with our neighbor and Rascal, a poodle bichon, a few minutes later.
The power was restored a few hours earlier than predicted and life was good.
But then Friday morning came. We had an electrician over to see why a few outlets inside and lights outside don’t work. My husband clicked to open the garage door for the electrician. The motor went on but the door didn’t open!
I saw a sticker with the garage door company name and number. I quickly called them in a panic. After all our dishwasher AND garbage disposal already quit working earlier. I was worried everything was going wrong in our “new” house all at once.
The garage door repair man came a few hours later. I told him we had had a power outage the day before and I didn’t know if that had anything to do with the double-sized garage door not opening.
“Did anyone pull on the red cord and manually open and close the garage door?” he asked.
“No, absolutely not,” my husband said. “We didn’t want to do that for the exact reason that we could hurt something.”
I was standing slightly behind my husband and sheepishly raised my hand. “I did,” I said.
The garage door man climbed a ladder under the garage motor, pressed a lever and presto! The garage door worked. The price tag: $230.
“Why didn’t you tell me you pulled the red cord?” my husband asked.
“You didn’t ask and the dentist told me to,” I explained. My husband shook his head and walked away.
The garage door man said he’d service our garage door and he also fixed the buttons outside which have never worked. So, now we can also get locked out of our house if the power goes out while we’re on a walk.
What embarrassing things have you done that compare with me pulling the red cord?
Sweet 🙌🙌
👍🏼
I had to laugh at this post EA! I remember well the days of the red cord! The concept always worked well for us so we could manually get in and out. I would back the car out and then without thought automatically reach out to close the door with the remote, totally forgetting there was no power. It was back to the old fashioned get out of the car and pull it down. That made me think of garage doors as a child and how no one thought twice about getting in and out of their car. I realized just how spoiled we are anymore but still long for a garage now that I don’t have one!
We had carports at our first two homes. Our Palm Springs home was built in the 1930s. It had heavy wooden gates we had to manually open and close. Eventually we added an arm with a motor and clicker to get in and out. But neither my husband or I knew about the red cord.
Well at least now you know!
That’s for sure! 😊
I’m surprised you couldn’t open the door after you pulled the red cord. You clearly were successful at disengaging the mechanism. I’ve always been able to get out by doing that. Also, I was a realtor for awhile and learned how handy lockboxes are. Ive kept a spare key in one on a door of every house since. They are difficult to break into, but if you know the code, they’re easy to use. The kids have the code, so no problem if they stop by when we’re not home. And we can give the code to someone in an emergency and just change it if we feel it’s compromised.
Our realtor left a lock box on our house so when we drove here our first night, we could get in. It’s still there! What’s funny is the neighbor who was locked out of his house is a realtor! He represented the seller of our house. Do I dare suggest he gets a lockbox? 😁 You’d think I could have opened the garage door but I couldn’t get it to budge. This is the first house we’ve had with a garage.
Haha! Oh, the irony. Thanks for the chuckle this morning.
😂
Aww, it happens to me too.
Dentist Office, providing garage door advise…. get a new dentist.
Haha!
So funny1 I thought the same, they sure want the business no matter what.
The garage door guy did not press anything, he just pushed the cord attached to the red handle back up. When you pulled it, it separated the motor from the chain so you could manually open/close. Once the power came on, the lever had to be reset by using a broom handle to push the cord back into place. We do it all the time because of hurricanes. To be charged $230 could be itemized like this: “$5 for resetting the door, $225 for taking advantage of people who do not know they just have to reset the rope attached to the red handle”. For future reference, there are about 300 YouTube videos showing how to do this (your phone gets YouTube, so no power, use the phone)
Unfortunately I had no clue what pulling the red cord would do or that I had disconnected the garage door to the motor. We have learned our lesson! He showed us how to reconnect it. Also it was running rough so it’s been serviced and doesn’t sound like it’s going to die any moment. The high charge included “emergency service” and “fuel fee.” UGH.
Pretty much every homeowner knows how to do this in Florida. It is in the “Things To Do in the event a Hurricane is headed our way” list.
We’ve never had a garage before, so we’re newbies. It was an expensive lesson, though.
This reminded me of a post I’m going to write about the power going out. We all need to be ready. Glad it worked out for you, but ouch $230!
Oh you know the quote that says, “Blessed are.those who can laugh at themselves, they should never cease to be amused..” That is me! You aren’t alone! How long of a list do you want of things I have done. LOL!
I’m with you! I have so many blog posts that will write themselves 😊
Thats the plus side, you always have things to write about! 😊
No kidding!
I remember that I once almost gave away my husband’s prized chicken mascot from Virginia Tech to one of my students. I had no idea that they were challenging to find. It was a plastic Hokie. I just thought I bet one of the Middle Schoolers would like that. Luckily, I asked and he told. By the way, my husband promptly showed me how to operate the red pull thing in our garage just in case….Happy Valentines Day.
Happy Valentine’s Day! Good thing you checked about the prized chicken and we’re all up to speed on the garage pull!
Years ago there was a story about a plumber, similar to your garage door guy who charged so much for 10 minutes. The plumber said, you called me because you didn’t know how to fix your issue. You were paying for my knowledge and travel time there and back. LOL. It’s true.
So true. I was told by the company though what the charge would be for an emergency call. It’s my fault I thought it was an emergency to not know how garage doors work!
My Dad was in construction, so I knew about the red cord. Well, now you can tell your neighbors or kids if they have a garage door power issue, right.
Yes. I guess we learned something new!
Why did the power go out?
We were never told. But it was a very windy day, so maybe a power line went down.
Leaving the water motor on and the motor overflowing on the roof. I’ve done that a couple times.
Oh no!