Garage door tales 9-6-26

Shortly after we moved into our new house 45 years ago, Hubby put in a garage door with an electronic opener. In the decades since, he has replaced the remote control three or four times, the door itself once but the track never. Only the loss of electricity interferes with its working. Well that and sunsets. Let me explain. Through the years we occasionally had times when the remote did not trigger an immediate response to move the door. When that happened we used the hard wired control inside the garage door. We held that button down until the metal door slid shut. Sometimes it added a little jump up. We quickly corrected that with another punch and held it until it hit concrete.That worked as long as the operator continually pressed the wall control. We wasted time if we sat in the car and used the remote control when the door refused to stay down after a couple of tries. We dealt with the fluke frequently through the years. Then one week I left at about the same time every day. Every single day the door did not close using the remote.That’s when I realized, “The sun’s rays interfere with the operating beams.” When Hubby complained again about the uncooperative door, I said. “It’s because the sun’s position at that time of day messes with the beam.” “I never thought of that,” he said. He installed a shade against the afternoon sun. It worked. He decided it needed a longer shade. It did not work. He made adjustments. It worked again. The next day we each drove our own vehicles to town to run errands. When I returned, I swung around the corner into our drive and hit the remote. The door went up a few inches and then it went down. I hit the remote again as I coasted into the drive. The door went up a foot and then down. “Again already, there is something wrong with that door,” I thought. I parked my car in the driveway, took the remote control off the visor and pointed it at the door, “Open, Sesame!” It slid up a foot then promptly dropped. I held the remote to continually send the signal “Open.” It bounced up and down. “He needs to fix that electronic sensor again,” I said as I slipped the remote back onto the visor, opened the car door and walked to the house. I planned to go into the garage, use the wall control, open the garage door, go back to the car, drive it into the garage and shut the door. As I entered the house through the front door, Hubby walked through the door from the garage. We looked at each other. He began telling me how he had come home, opened the garage, drove in, closed the door and started to get out when the door started up. “I said, “Whaatt?? I fixed that,” he said. “I pushed the remote and again the door went down only to begin moving up again. I could not understand it. Every time I closed the door it immediately reversed up.” When the door hit the concrete and stayed down, he walked over and opened the door into the house just as I opened the front door. We both immediately knew why the garage door acted like a big yo-yo.Since he did not need to adjust the electronic sensors, I suggested he could park my car in the garage. We had resolved that day’s problem with the garage door.