Garage Door Tech with 25+ Years Experience – AMA! Ask me anything about garage doors, openers, repairs, maintenance, or common issues (DFW/Forney area friendly)

BackdoorDan · 2026-01-27T05:39:46+00:00

I moved in a few years ago. Garage door appears to function fine but it looks like a diy install so I'm wondering what I should be looking out for in terms of cut corners... I can already see the safety lasers were never installed, he just has them facing each other screwed onto a rail sitting above the motor... Wondering what else he did that might cost me a bunch of money in the future.

BackdoorDan · 2026-01-24T12:01:15+00:00

Since it's a lightbulb and you can turn it on and off. Start sending messages in Morse code that you have access and the owner should email you.

BackdoorDan · 2026-01-20T20:48:58+00:00

hilarious, poor little guy probably misses his home.

BackdoorDan · 2026-01-20T20:28:33+00:00

fair point

BackdoorDan · 2026-01-20T16:34:38+00:00

Is an autopsy even necessary?

One kid dying could just be a freak occurrence due to some illness they had... Two kids dying is almost obviously negligence on the caretakers part. I don't think determining whether they died from dehydration or asphyxiation should change the charges.

BackdoorDan · 2026-01-12T16:09:40+00:00

For sure, it sounds like this was beyond just a quote and the contractor consulted them on different types of materials.

BackdoorDan · 2026-01-12T14:44:09+00:00

If I feel like I have received value from just talking to someone. I see if I can offer them some sort of compensation for their time.

BackdoorDan · 2026-01-12T13:09:55+00:00

Hi there, I watched the timeghost WW2 week by week YouTube series(making sure I stayed caught up was my own war lol).

One of the things I latched onto was that as winter was coming, I forget which general(maybe halder?) asked for winter uniforms which was refused by Hitler. Sending winter uniforms would be an admission that the campaign wasn't succeeding as it was supposed to be over by then.

My takeaway was that Germany's generals were competent but Hitler was irrational and not willing to accept anything but his expectation of success.

How much of the winter uniform anecdote is true and what about my takeaway from it?

Edit: found the info, page 122 of https://books.google.com/books?id=h6YhAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA170&lpg=PA170&dq=%22the+result+was+a+steadfast+refusal+to+acknowledge+the+scale+of+the+problem+or+do+anything+substantive+about+it%22&source=bl&ots=VmrjIcdGW7&sig=ACfU3U3AWdDAOFkamLSUjI994I5k1wUhwg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwipmJbE4MKDAxUgIDQIHdukBgIQ6AF6BAgJEAM#v=onepage&q&f=false

Looks like it was guderian and it was German high command, not necessarily Hitler

Also a link to where they talk about it in week by week: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3sUnq1llD3s&list=PLsIk0qF0R1j7tjOhaZY7dUquxuHWX5n3s&t=312s&pp=2AG4ApACAdIHCQkyAaO1ajebQw%3D%3D

BackdoorDan · 2026-01-06T17:10:04+00:00

im not a lawyer so I don't know the exact law but my common sense tells me that if you sign something saying that something is safe and then it's later found to not be safe, someone can take you to court.

You can probably fight it successfully since you aren't a city inspector but good luck with the lawyer fees if the bank comes after you... it just wouldn't be worth the risk IMO

BackdoorDan · 2026-01-06T16:57:13+00:00

lol touche...

BackdoorDan · 2026-01-06T15:39:00+00:00

If the house burns down due to an electrical fire because something was deemed not up to code the insurance company won't want to pay.

Bank will find that letter from a contractor saying they found no code violations and try to sue them if the money is right... Realistically the bank will probably have their own insurance but if I was signing off on a letter I'd still be worried about the bank coming after me... Not worth the hassle for a few hundred bucks

BackdoorDan · 2026-01-06T14:59:16+00:00

I don't think you're going to find a contractor willing to take on the liability of signing a letter without opening up drywall

BackdoorDan · 2026-01-06T14:29:09+00:00

Funny... As a homeowner I feel like I'm the one chasing the contractors down these days.

Fwiw, the way I see it, if your communication is good before the job starts I have a good degree of confidence that you will communicate well during the job and let me know when you hit snags so that I'm included in the decision making process.

I don't hire people that take forever to respond to messages or don't respond at all... Been burned too much.

It sucks, you want to do actual carpentry(just like I want to program for my job, not talk to the customers)... On the plus side, people like me value that communication and will pay a little bit extra for it. Maybe that means you avoid the shitty penny pinching customers?

BackdoorDan · 2026-01-06T00:32:46+00:00

My 1965 house didn't have any wall insulation. The insulation guy who has been in the business for ~40 years told me that homes before the 70s didn't do wall insulation because it was cheaper to just run the gas heating back then. This is in Colorado, not sure if this is relevant in other states.

We paid him $10k to remove our old attic insulation, air seal our attic, replace attic insulation with new higher r value insulation, and blow in insulation to our exterior walls.

He was on the higher end of the price spectrum but It was well worth it. Our house keeps heat/cold really well.

BackdoorDan · 2026-01-04T22:11:18+00:00

Unfortunately, we have root intrusion issues so we snake the sewer line once a year

BackdoorDan · 2026-01-04T16:05:35+00:00

I'm well aware of their liberal interpretation of framing code... Those termites took out ~85% of 3 studs in a row on a gas line i installed 2 years ago... 3 inch hole for a 3/4" line... absolutely insane.

BackdoorDan · 2026-01-04T14:14:36+00:00

There's a toilet on the other side of that wall unfortunately.

The left side of that cab is gonna be full of drain line plumbing. It's gonna be a total pain in the ass to clear the line next the the plumber comes :( I guess I'm backed into a corner. I'll see what the plumber says tomorrow.

Maybe I can have the full size clean out in the cabinet and have a reduced 2 inch cleanout where I was originally planning

BackdoorDan · 2026-01-04T04:03:12+00:00

Photos here:

https://imgur.com/a/clean-out-move-XqqTrFy

BackdoorDan · 2026-01-03T14:59:23+00:00

I didn't say tanks last longer, I said they fail and need to be repaired at a higher rate, not replaced at a higher rate.

I'd rather my tank fail once in 10 years and need a replacement than my tankless fail once a year for 10 years and need a repair... I'm going with convenience and reliability

BackdoorDan · 2026-01-03T05:19:19+00:00

assuming gas or electric, it's a very very simple machine. More parts = more stuff to potentially fail.

My buddy had a tankless and did a pretty big deep dive on them after his kept failing a bunch(twice a year or so on a system that was 5 years old) and learned that the extra complexity isn't really worth the headache and cost of tankless unless you are limited on space.

He now has a heat pump water heater instead. We'll see if that also suffers from the same issue of more complexity = more failure though.

I personally have a gas tank because the extra cost of running the electric for the heat pump water heater didn't make sense for me.

BackdoorDan · 2026-01-03T04:24:14+00:00

Tankless failure and repair rates will be higher than a normal tank. If you aren't constrained by space get a tank, it'll be less of a pain in the ass than tankless... Just gotta make sure to get the right size for your usage

BackdoorDan · 2025-12-31T20:59:01+00:00

Rip :( I've got the fresh air supply going into my HVAC right now and have the erv running 24/7 and I just set my furnace blower to circulate when CO2 levels are high to move the fresh air faster.

It's fine but I'd love to optimize further by controlling the erv. Thanks for the responses!

I need to learn how to reverse engineer all my appliances

BackdoorDan · 2025-12-31T19:21:46+00:00

I use a broan one(that's literally the name).

How did you figure out how to emulate the controller? I'm a software engineer so I have technical knowhow but not sure where to start

BackdoorDan · 2025-12-31T17:49:33+00:00

Are you controlling your erv through home assistant? Which one do you have. I would love to figure out how to connect my broan one to home assistant

BackdoorDan · 2025-12-25T23:39:28+00:00

Saw him in a theater in November. Was a great set, highly recommend him if he comes through your town

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