Garages: past, present, future and sales.

50 responses total.

A family member backed out of our garage yesterday - with the door not
fully risen. Crunch. I don't think it is repairable (wood lower jamb is
broken, panels pulled out, and lower metal frame bent). The guides may
still be OK. Who are the recommended overhead garage door merchants,
and what should we know about replacement materials (wood, vinyl, metal)
and other issues?

If memory serves me right, crawford Doors in Ypsilantiis the place we used
whenever we needed help (now don't have a garage).  Overhead garage doors is
one of the few things I don't mess with, but call the experts.  They have been
around a long time.  Their prices were fair, they seemed to be honest, and
the problem was always solved.  Good luck!

I called Ann Arbor Door Systems; they came out today, and gave a quote
on the spot, which I thought was reasonable - complete replacement with
insulated metal door that resembles the old wood one. They even mentioned
that our insurance should pay for part of it...never occurred to me (after
all, *we* made the mess....).  However I think the door should be
equipped with a not-yet-fully-open beeper, after this!

We used to use Ann Arbor Door Systems, but switched to Crawford Doors.  You
might want to get a 2nd bid on the repair work.

Do you drive out through your garage door a lot?  :)

Our insurance agent requires only one bid, and pays all except a deductible.

Was there a problem you had with Ann Arbor Door Systems? They seem very
responsive and helpful, to me. 

No damage to the doors, just some wear and tear on the lifting mechanism. 
As far as I remember there wasnt a problem.  I think it was the property
management  company that used Crawford while we were gone.

Apparently our new garage door will have seals - or some kinds of gaskets -
all around, preventing drafts. That's a new idea - I've only known drafty
garages! I wonder if the garage door opener will work through a steel door,
since the antenna is at the drive....

Since the rest of the garage isn't steel, I assume, the opener should work
fine.  My parents' garage has a steel door and seals and all that, and the
opener works fine.

Of course you may want to tie all the metal parts together with braid as
metal rubbing metal can cause RF noise.  Anyone who does anything with RC
models knows that all linkages that move are metal to plastic.  Otherwise
your servos do weird things.  It would be a bad day if you hit the door-UP
button and had the door generate a door DOWN command just as you were
driving in ;-)  Of course, I've never owned a garage door opening system
as mine is attached to my shoulder.  This may not be a real-world problem.

My parents have had a garage door opener for about eight years now, and
there's never been a problem of that sort with it.  I don't think it's a real
world problem.  The garage door opener signals are pretty specific.

There was a problem when our garage door opener and the neighbor's garage door
opener were responding to the same signals, but that was fixed by flipping
some switches to change what signal it would respond to.

More particularly, the opener/closer signals are digital, not likely to
be generated by 'static'. Still, I'll listen in on 2-m, just to see if
there is any RF power.

What do garage door openers send out these days?  The early ones just
sent a specific tone.  Then they sent an 8 bit digital RF word.  Do they
still do that or has it gotten more complex?

MIne dates from 1982 and uses that 8 bit word.

I believe my parents' opener uses an 8 bit word, but it dates from '88 or so.

Our new steel garage door is installed. It took one man about four hours -
with the right tools (and knowhow - and me not kibitzing). The
installation manual has big safety warnings on every page - that spring,
especially, can be a killer (yes, the manual warns of "serious injury or
death" from it). The sensitivity to the remote is much reduced with the
door closed, compared to the old wood door - it does act as a shield for
the radio signal. I have to take the remote out of the compartment in my
car dash, where I used to just push the button. Now, I think I will
install a microswitch and a flashing red LED, which switches to green when
the door is fully open..... 

The installer, incidentally, made some rude comments about the Stanley
garage door opener (which I installed in 1982), and he did not know which
way to adjust the "sensitivity" control to make it less sensitive.

Our homeowners insurance paid for most of this. I'm always surprised 
that they pay even though we did the damage ourselves. I guess it is
"no fault" insurance.

Wandering past the set of 4 new $$$ condos on Williams near the RR tracks
downtown today, i noticed that they had *very* deep garages in their
ground floors.  The builder's little billboard advertised "2-car garage"
as a feature (along with 2 bedrooms, loft, 3.5 baths, etc. in what 
certainly look like 4-story-tall small-footprint townhouses).  Has any
ever seen a 2-car garage that 2 cars DEEP, and one car wide?  I can imagine
some potential problems....

I've seen such a garage in a place I looked at renting a few years ago.  In
my case, since I've got one vehicle I drive frequently and one vehicle I drive
very rarely, it wouldn't be a problem (or at least no more of a problem than
my one car wide two car deep outdoor parking situation now).

Those townhouses look quite neat.  Very Londinish.  Apparrently somebody's
planning many more somewhat like those for the big empty piece of land a block
or two away from there.

What on earth does someone want with 2 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms?  I thought
I had read the sign wrong at first and got it backwards.

I haven't looked at the sign that carefully.  I'm kind of surprised that those
places would have only two bedrooms, but I'm guessing there's a simple answer
to the bathroom question.  Those houses are quite tall and narrow, four
floors, if I'm remembering correctly.  My guess is that they thought people
shouldn't have to be running up and down stairs whenever they want to go to
the bathroom.

Yep, 2 & 3.5.  I think it's nuts, too.  Why would you buy one unless you
loved going up & down stairs?  All those baths cost floor space and money
and upkeep and someone gonna have to clean 'em....

Probably those places have 1 or even 2 "office" rooms, etc.  

Our neighbors are building a house with a 4 car garage two cars wide and two
cars deep.  The cars will be closest to the garage doors.  One of the two
forward spots will be used to store their camper, canoes and kayak while
the 4th spot will be used for their bicycles.

I could understand 2 full and 2 half baths, but 3 full baths?  Do they expect
a couple with one child, who all have to shower at the same time?  Wouldn't
two showers in the same bathroom be cheaper?

My parents rented a townhouse in London where almost every room was on a
different floor, but it only had two bathrooms for the five floors.  It was
rather exhausting for the first week or so of my 2.5 week trip there, but by
the end of the time I was there I was running up and down the stairs without
thinking about them (and feeling great).  I got back to my stair free life
in Ann Arbor, and started feeling intense stair withdrawl.

My apartment is on the first floor, except for a basement bathroom.  I have
never found the stairs to be a problem.  Americans are rather spoiled, indoor
plumbing is not enough for them, it has to be on the same floor, not shared
even by family members.

Re: #21 - my impression is no explicit office rooms, but they do claim 
a "loft".

Re: #23 - i know that the fairly-modest-for-Ann-Arbor townhouse condos
across Oak Valley Dr. from the SW-side Meijer offer 3.5 baths on 3
floors:  both bedrooms on the 2nd floor have private full baths, there's
a 1/2 bath on the first floor, then their popular "finished basement"
option added a full bath (shower, not tub) and family room on the bottom.
(A probably-not-popular option split the decent-size family room into a
dinky family room & 3rd bedroom.)  

Three plus bathrooms are two plus bathrooms I'd rather not have to clean.

I rented a room in Skopje for a few months from a family with 'two bathrooms',
if you can call them that.  Five family members lived on the first floor, they
rented out four unheated upstairs rooms with four beds in each, and there was
a men's and a woman's outhouse.  The latter was at the far end of the large
yard and was no fun at night in the rain.  Running cold water, outside,
consisting of a faucet and a concrete basin.  A washroom in back - screened
with a hole in the floor.  Baths were a bucket of water and a cup to pour it
over yourself.  The water was heated on the wood stove and I would save some
to do the week's laundry with.  The landlady offered to wash me so I could
get it over with quicker (in November, I did not stay through December).  This
was the center of town, a charming old Turkish house.  I cannot understand
people who need one bathroom per bedroom.
        This house was real luxury compared to villages where you had to walk
to the neighbor's well for water and use a balance-type bucket arrangement
to lift it from the well, then lug it back in buckets.  None of these people
seemed to ever worry about incorporating more exercise in their daily life.

Re#24 (stair withdrawl):

I think there's a 12-step program to help with that.
 
(sorry)

Woo: I have a garage! :-)  At present it's filled with boxes and house
plants.  There is a rather knackered utility sink, a water heater that
needs raising by about 46cm/18" and some flue work.  There is also a
whole house water softener that is in almost exactly the wrong place.
There is an attic, but I need to fit a new access ladder.

Congratulations, Andy!  You can now have your very own GARAGE SALE! ;-)

A heated garage?

It's not intentionally heated afaik, but it's built onto the house and
is home to the hot water tank.  I may fit an incandescent bulb for the
winter and there are a couple of small windows that may help keep it a
few degrees above the prevailing outdoor temperature.

Is the water tank well insulated?  I bet you don't have a basement.  Are the
windows double glazed?  If not, tape plastic over them.  It will also keep
out the drafts.

The water heater only has whatever insulation is built into it.  If it
were electric I would happily put an insulating jacket around it, but
it's gas-powered.  I plan to lag much of the exposed piping before
winter, perhaps marking the sleeves with a colour-coded arrow to show
whether it's hot or cold and direction of flow.  Mrs. Ball wants city
water, so I may end up with three colours: city cold, well cold and
hot (derived from city cold).

Where do you live that has well water?  Does lag mean insulate with foam tubes
and tape?  You can wrap plastic coated fiberglass insulation jackets around
the sides and bottom of water heaters.  Ask how at a hardware store.  You can
also eventually insulate the ceiling and walls of the garage to retain all
that waste heat.

A single-story 1950s brick house in a seemingly quiet suburb of a
"city" that is theoretically three separate towns that butt up against
one another.  Foam & tape is what I had in mind, though I'm open to
alternative suggestions.

The garage ceiling has loose-fill insulation.  I think the house does
too.  It seems inexpensive and I'm told that I can add more provided I
take care to maintain proper ventilation at the eaves.  The garage
walls are brick, probably not insulated.  Once I can get to it, I want
to draft-proof the door as best I can.

Adding wall insulation would be much more effective than increasing ceiling
insulation.  Buy the foil-faced polyisocyanurate boards (1/2" or thicker) and
nail (glue?) 2x4's to the brick walls at 4' spacings, then glue the insulation
boards over those, and cover with drywall.  The foil adds extra insulation
when it is facing an air cavity, so you could get even more insulating value
by nailing on 1x4's (or 1x2'), then the insulation boards, then another set
of 1x' (one by's).  Ask the people at the lumber store for ideas.  Jim bought
materials to do his basement walls this way.  Bricks have roughly 0 insulating
value, which is why they feel colder to the touch in winter than wood walls.
Ditto for glass.  Tape thick plastic over any windows to increase insulation
while blocking drafts.  You can buy window insulation kits with thin plastic
that should last maybe 10 years (we are still using some).  It goes on with
tape and then you heat with a hair dryer.

How cold are your winters?  It seems odd to me to put the water heater into
an unheated brick garage.

You would be much better off financially putting your money and effort into
insulation instead of solar electric, until the cost comes down.  If you get
a lot of winter sun, and you have a large enough back yard, you could add 
passive solar to the back of the house in the form of a sun porch with good
floor and ceiling insulation, insulated east and west walls, and a south wall
of double or triple panes low-E glass.  With a couple of operable screened
windows to keep it usable spring and fall and tolerable in summer.  A screened
door to the outside would be nice in summer.  We have south-facing sunporches
with just leaky plastic sheeting on them right now (really leaky) that can
be 90 F in January on a sunny enough day (which are rare here).  This would
add usable space and also heat.  You need some way to get the heat into the
house, such as two windows and a fan.  If you are not home during the day,
automate the fan and have flaps of something on the windows.

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