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Writer's pictureTony Fortunato

Ok, I'm Guilty..

A few years ago my garage door died after a lightning storm. Lesson learned, i now have a whole home surge protection system installed. Since I was on the road, my wife called "the professionals" to install a new unit.

When I returned home, I was pleasantly surprised that there was one less thing for me to do. The first time I used it I knew something wasn't quite right but I had no time or energy to look into it. And like all IT implementations "It works, so move on.".

Over the past few years, I would comment to my wife that the garage opener looked misaligned but was quickly reminded that i had a ton of other stuff to worry about.

One day i went to use the garage door opener and heard a "crack and snap". Watching the chain dangling was a sure sign that something wasn't right ;)

I got the ladder to check things out hoping the chain just jumped the sprocket and I could fix it quickly. Nope... to my surprise, the shaft that the sprocket was connected to had snapped. upon closer inspection, I could see a pile of metal filings (see photo below) indicating that the shaft had been wearing away for a while.

This reminded me of the countless network equipment, applications, computer configurations and installs where I'm always preaching to make sure you test and check things out before you leave.

In this case, I am willing to accept being guilty, lazy, and putting off something I knew wasn't working correctly.

I purchased a new garage door opener and noticed all the shortcuts the 'professionals' took with the previous installation explaining the misaligned unit. Now I know why my wife and I prefer to do our own home renovations or check any work done by anyone other than us.


Cost of being lazy and procrastinating; $350 and a half a day to purchase/install the new unit.

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