When was the last time you inspected your garage door? When was the last time you examined the track that your garage door open used to open the door?
Yesterday, my wife pressed the door opener button on our garage wall to open the door. She said the door briefly started to move, then immediately reversed and closed. She thought it was odd, but pressed the button a second time without giving it too much thought. The door again started to move, then again reversed. This time, she noticed that the opener itself started to sway, pushing the brackets that attach it to our ceiling about six inches out of alignment.
She yelled for me in a voice that left no doubt something was wrong and I came running. She explained what happened and we then noticed that the track that the opener uses to pull the door open had started to fall off the bracket that attaches it to the wall above the door opening. I grabbed my ladder and carefully moved it between our cars -- our new Model S and and our Audi TTS convertible. I climbed the ladder and held up the track with my shoulder to keep it from falling onto the cars below. Somehow, the bolts that attach the track to the bracket had managed to work their way loose. The nut on one bolt had completely fallen off and the nut on the last remaining bolt was held on by maybe one half turn.
I was able to reassemble everything without a disaster, but it was an incredibly close call. I checked every other fastener I could find and am confident things are back as they should be. I have no idea why it happened, or how long things had been working their way loose. Rest assured I'll be checking everything regularly for some time to make sure things stay fixed.
Yesterday, my wife pressed the door opener button on our garage wall to open the door. She said the door briefly started to move, then immediately reversed and closed. She thought it was odd, but pressed the button a second time without giving it too much thought. The door again started to move, then again reversed. This time, she noticed that the opener itself started to sway, pushing the brackets that attach it to our ceiling about six inches out of alignment.
She yelled for me in a voice that left no doubt something was wrong and I came running. She explained what happened and we then noticed that the track that the opener uses to pull the door open had started to fall off the bracket that attaches it to the wall above the door opening. I grabbed my ladder and carefully moved it between our cars -- our new Model S and and our Audi TTS convertible. I climbed the ladder and held up the track with my shoulder to keep it from falling onto the cars below. Somehow, the bolts that attach the track to the bracket had managed to work their way loose. The nut on one bolt had completely fallen off and the nut on the last remaining bolt was held on by maybe one half turn.
I was able to reassemble everything without a disaster, but it was an incredibly close call. I checked every other fastener I could find and am confident things are back as they should be. I have no idea why it happened, or how long things had been working their way loose. Rest assured I'll be checking everything regularly for some time to make sure things stay fixed.
