Buying the House, Renting the Benefits

There are little things that are taken for granted in our everyday home life; electricity, water, television…and garage doors. I say this only because, as ours was closing yesterday, a horrible scraping sound caused me to turn to see our door wrenching and convulsing, rollers flying off in pairs. Being moderately proud and capable, I look to see if it’s anything that I could fix. After a few moments, being moderately pragmatic, I call my home warranty company. They, as one would expect, do not cover the door when it is off it’s track (yes, the mantric question–”what do you cover?” went through my head and does most time I call them, but a post for another date).

I look at my phone and realize the time is 4:10. On a Friday. Can’t really leave the door up, especially with the specter of the neighbors on both sides having being broken into. My better half brings me a slew of advertisements and phone numbers of garage door repair folk hastily written on the back of an envelope. Many of the places are emergency, 24 hour type places. The first two didn’t have anyone that could come out. So much for that. The third someone who could come out in 45 minutes or so, 5 at the latest. Cool. 6:30 or so and after a concerned call by me, the fellow shows up. Efficient, practical, nice–all that you want in a repair man. After about 45 minutes, a set of replacement rollers and about 325 dollars later, our door was aligned, lubed and–most importantly–down.

325 clams. For 45 minutes. Admittedly, some of the cost was the set of rollers. So, about 175 dollars for those 45 minutes. Good work if you can get it. Of course, I could have been screwed. Really hard to tell, especially when you know you need the door down and so does the repair man. Too bad I couldn’t Froogle it.

I sometimes wonder if it is better to rent vs. own–stuff like this wouldn’t really be an issue. If you wonder the same thing, a few sites are here and here at Yahoo!.