Garage door pillar (or whatever that piece of exterior wall between the two garage doors)was rotten at the bottom when we bought the house. Contractor thought it would be okay to cut off rot, install a brick underneath. Maybe not a permanent fix, but better than having it rot the rest of the way.
Well, enter bad depth perception, Veteran's Day holiday, and a heavy 245 Volvo wagon. I barely touched the pillar, but the brick slid over the wet pavement to angle, taking both garage door tracts with it.
That is where I should have stopped. Instead I thought, hmm, I wonder what this means for the garage door. Will it still open? I'm so *stupid*. Bent tracks means no. The rollers start falling out of the tracks. I start to let the garage door down, but somehow it gets stuck up in the air.
So then there is not just one problem that i have to fix, but two problems, and I see how this problem is cascading into what will be a major project and a lot of money to fix. I call the garage door repair people. One person makes me send a photo. I get a quick response. I know what quick responses mean. NO!
"Sorry, ma'am, no one's available to come out to do your repairs."
"When will someone be able to come?"
"What's the scope of the work?"
"What are you even asking? Please stop texting and call me so we can talk about this." NO RESPONSE!
One garage door repair company comes out and sees what I have done. "This door is a hazard! It weighs more than 300 lbs. This isn't a simple garage door repair. It will cost $1500 for a new garage door install. There is possible structural issues at play. We can't help you. Sorry. We won't charge you the $30 coming out fee because we can't help and feel terrible. You're stuck up a creek without a paddle." I really do appreciate not having to pay $30.
But they do tell me how to remove garage door myself. I go to Home Depot, buy rope, look for a tool that will help with square bolts, and some gross smelling PB blaster. It turns out that I didn't need to spray the awful caustic solvent, but it made me super grossed out. I felt like I was actually doing something. Then I start taking the garage door down.
What's the spring doing up there? Is that the hazard that the nice gentlemen were talking about? Hmm. Am I going to die? Is this heavy garage door going to fall on me? Should I be doing this by myself? Will my children hear me yelling if i get squashed by this huge honking, partially rotting door?
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There we g.o.
Does it help that we have so much sh*t in our garage that I can't even stand thought of spending time in there anymore?
We started the pipe dream of making it into an ADU thinking we could split up and the boy could live out in the garage. But truth be said I'm no longer wishing to clean up after said boy. No more kitchen messes, no gross bathroom debris. No thank you. So why bust my behind to fix something that I don't want to be utilized by boy? So garage is half framed. But we had no plans, nothing when the framing started. I know nothing of framing or how to do anything really. Except for demolish things.
Back to door problem.
I call N. He tells me to get the jack stud lift (actual name-something else) under the door. I can barely figure out how to do this without creaming myself or yelling profanities at teen daughter who probably know more about building things that I do. (Yelling because "I'm cold, I don't want to be outside, let me go back to bed to watch Youtube videos. Gees, you don't even know what they're called. GOD mom. They're VLOGS now." What?!)
Of course when N does come to look at the damage I caused, I find that I didn't install jack stud lift correctly. Who knew? I did. I didn't care. The garage door was still on the left side. It didn't look like the thing would fall down. There is one continuous header above the doors. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? In terms of structural integrity. One complete length means more sturdy, doesn't necessarily need the middle pillar. Correct? I don't know. I've tried googling, but all the responses are how to fix a broken header. Or how to fix a broken garage door. Or how to impale yourself with the spring above garage door.
I figured the hay would catch anything if it feel. I was worried about the dogs, cat, and kids. I wanted the window panel out of there before it fell.
So I use rope to support the door to the rafters. I spray the gross solvent on the square nuts. And I get to work without the security that the right side is supported because I couldn't reach the rafters from under the door. I wring the rope around a few nails in the studs, up in front of the door, to the rafters, and back to the other side. So i'm completely hesitant to remove door. I have no idea where the tension is or isn't in the spring. I can see one cable has released the tightness and is sloppily wrapped around the torsion rod. But both cables are still taut. N comes, tries to make me explain my plan. I have no plan! I'm just doing what garage door repair guys tell me. I didn't even understand half of what they said except "it would be $1000 to take this door down and three people".
Luckily N knows how to support things, doesn't listen to me when I say, "No, don't support the door to the tracks." He supports the door to the tracks, makes a few more knots, expresses annoyance with my 100ft rope sloppily going from one side to another, etc. But we get the door down. He leaves the door in the middle of garage floor. Still one panel attached to the mechanical lifter.
That was Wednesday. Contractor wants pictures of what's removed and wants to know if the spring is gone. He doesn't know how to remove them, is frightened of them, has heard horror stories, etc. I don't quite get it, still!
He comes on Saturday. We still can't see behind the pillar. What does the middle support that is sideways look like.
I find a very nice Youtube video about "how to fix garage door" that tell she how to remove my garage door tension. I cross my fingers and start working alone after sending out one text message just in case. I spend all day on Sunday worrying about said death traps of string, tensing, torsion, etc. BUT I got doors removed. Most of the tracks are gone, too.
The bottom of left door had some major rot going on. I have parts to put back one garage door. Do I do that or do I say, "No thanks. No garage door hassle." Where would I put the animal feed? That's what really woke me up at 3 am this morning. What happens if it freezes? Am I jeopardizing my well pump by exposing it at this time of the year? Is this how normal house owners feel? Or am I unique? This doesn't feel like a good thing.
The question is do I really want a 2 door garage? We've never parked in our garage. But what would happen to the resale value we remove the garage doors and frame a wall? What if we keep one door near the pump? We could wall off one door and make 3/4 of our garage into an ADU.
But then I read a story about what Multnomah County has done to property taxes with detached ADU. Some property taxes have been raised by $2000-$4000 dollars. But you're safe it's an attached ADU.
I have always wanted to attach our garage to house. Make more living space. Our house has no room bigger than 125 square feet. But I don't know how to build. I don't know how to keep water out of the breezeway. I still haven't put the pool away. What about the kitchen drain that goes all the way around house? Is it okay to concrete over it? How do I make it level? How do I marry the two to not look a piece of sh*t? Focus on on project at a time is what I keep telling myself. I still have plywood countertops in the kitchen.
I did finally hang the dry erase board that my children have been bothering me about lately. Why didn't they just get the drill and do it themselves?? The teen will be happy to see that I also hung the knife holder. Thanks to another sick kiddo home from school today. I get things done when it's unexpected. I've also been up since 3 this morning worrying about the dishes, laundry, buildings falling down, goats unhappy, chickens etc. Geesh. Maybe I should sell the farmlet. Can I do this on my own?
This is a pretty long post. Have I bored myself?
This is what the garage post looks like from this inside. I'm stuck as to how to fix it. I tried hammering it back, but that just caused the jack to fall on my Volvo and dent it! I've removed the trim. I worry that I'm just making a bigger mess.
To be continued...
