I’m probably jinxing it by saying this, but this year has been pretty quiet home repair wise. I haven’t had to do anything major like replace my dishwasher or repair my roof. The worst thing that’s happened this year is the clothes dryer stopped working. (I unplugged it to let it cool down, plugged it back in and it worked good as new!) So when I came home one night to find the garage door broken, I thought, boy, this is it!
I don’t know much about garage doors, but from what I do know they can be a real pain in the neck. Whenever I open my garage door, I do it carefully because the last thing I want is for it to come off the track. Luckily, the garage door didn’t come off the track this time, although something almost as bad happened – one of the garage door rollers broke.
At first I didn’t know what to do, so I watched some DIY home repair videos on YouTube. Once I had a pretty good understanding about how garage doors work I gave it a shot repairing my own garage door.
I went the frugal route first. I used the “handyman’s secret weapon” duct tape. I tried to secure the broken garage door roller in place – to no avail. Once I determined I couldn’t fix the garage door with anything around the house, I headed to a local big box hardware store.
A new garage door roller.
Always do your research ahead of time. When I asked the sales clerk where to find the garage door rollers, he initially said they didn’t have any. It wasn’t until I showed him the item on my smartphone that he took me to where the item is found in the store.
My biggest fear was that the garage door roller wouldn’t fit, so I did my homework ahead of time. I took measurements of the old garage door roller and took a photo with my smartphone.
Once I got home, repairing my garage door was pretty easy. I unscrewed the garage door hinge, took out the old garage door roller, replaced it with the new roller and put the screws back in the hinge. When I opened the garage door it worked. Good as new.
By taking a couple hours out of my evening I was able to repair my garage door and all it cost me was $9.95. Not bad! I estimate that I saved myself $200 to $300 by repairing the garage door myself instead of calling someone in to repair it.
The new garage door roller in the track.
When my dad’s garage door broke, he called in a repairperson who said it was broken and charged him $100 for literally doing nothing. Although I’m sure a repairperson could have fixed my garage door, I’m glad I didn’t end up paying someone for an easy repair I can manage myself.
The next time something breaks in your home, before you call a repairperson, consider fixing it yourself. If it’s something to do with the trades – electrical, heating or plumbing – it’s probably best left to the experts, but if it’s something you might be able to handle yourself, why not try to repair it yourself? With so many handy home repair videos out there on websites like YouTube there’s really no good reason not to at least attempt to do a home repair yourself.
There’s no shame if you can’t do the home repair on your own, but at least you tried. Besides you’re probably better educated from doing your own research and less likely to be taken advantage of by the very few bad apples out there.