When I shop at Costco, I expect to receive a quality product at a competitive price. Usually, I am extremely happy with my purchases, but that garage door I purchased from them has turned out to be quite a doozy. Mind you, the garage door itself is fine. The problem is with everything else attached to that garage door.

So, three years in, one of the torsion springs broke. Only three years? So, I found another contractor to replace both of the torsion springs and I didn’t think much about the garage again until a few months ago when the garage door opener started failing intermittently. Sometimes the door would not open all the way. Other times it would not close all the way. I had not problem with the opening, because I could always click on the garage door opener a second time. However, the closing was a serious issue because unless you monitored the garage door every time to make sure that it closed completely, there was always a chance that the garage door was not securely shut.

Long story short, I replaced the Chamberlain Whisper Drive 1/2 HP Belt Drive garage door opener, which was not all that quiet, with a LiftMaster 3850 DC Motor Belt with EverCharge Standby Power System. After I changed the garage door opener, the problem completely disappeared and the new opener is amazingly quiet. No more rattle and shake when the door is opening or closing. Just solid and quiet.

Three years ago, I had purchased a new garage door and opener through Costco. A local contractor handled the installation. Other than the light bulb repeatedly getting loose, the door and opener worked flawlessly. I really like the new steel sectional garage door for two reasons:

1. I didn’t have to worry if I parked too close to the garage door anymore. That’s a real problem with tilt up garage doors.
2. When I was inside the garage, I no longer had to worry about the garage door whacking someone when it opened. Again, a problem with tilt up garage doors.

Anyways, the honeymoon ended last night when one of the torsion springs broke. Ugh. At first, I wasn’t sure what was happening. The garage door would only open about 3 inches and then stop. It also could not completely close by itself. I ended pulling the release so that the garage door could slam shut. After some inspection, I discovered that one of the springs was broken. Now, I’ve fixed many an extension spring on tilt up garage doors before, but torsion springs were something new. I spotted this page on replacing torsion springs and it looked entirely unappealing. Anyways, I called one contractor who quoted me $239 to replace the one spring. Not sure if that was the after hours price or their regular price, but since I was in no hurry I waited until day break to call again. This time, I called Halcyon Overhead Doors in San Jose. $159 to replace one spring and $199 to replace both. Of course, I replaced both with high cycle torsion springs that should last 12-15 years. We’ll see how these perform, but a garage spring failing after three years? C’mon.

Seth Godin complained about Verizon’s customer service in his blog. The funny thing is that I can relate even though I have never used Verizon in my entire life. Just substitute the name of your local phone company; i.e., SBC, AT&T or whatever it’s called these days. I’m not sure why the telecom industry insists on delivering a subpar customer experience, but it happens regularly. The easy route would be to attribute it to their monopoly status, but not all monopolies act badly.

What irritates me most is when I have to navigate through multiple levels of menus. I just need to type in a couple words and Google can figure out what I’m looking for in less than a second. Why can’t the phone company route calls with similar efficiency?

In California, the Contractors State License Board regulates the state’s construction industry. Their website lists the various licensing classifications, as well as allows consumers to verify whether a contractor possesses a valid California contractor license. I recently reviewed a bid that included a license number. Since the license number was much lower than that on another bid, I punched both into the CSLB website. After some research, it turns out that one of the license numbers was a city business license number, not a state contractor license number. Technically, it was a license number, but certainly not the type of license that I was expecting.

If you are building a new house or extensively remodeling an existing house, your number one question for your contract will be “when can I move in?” To get a sense of the timeline, you should see whether your city offers online inspection histories.

For example, the City of Palo Alto has an online Permit Manager, that lets you check and research permits, and review the inspection results. If a contractor you are considering has handled a few projects within Palo Alto, then you can look up those projects by address and see how long the construction took from when the permit was obtained to the final inspection. Of course, not all delays are caused by the contractor, but at least you can get a sense on how quickly different contractors wrap up their projects.

If you are planning to remodel a kitchen or bath, or build a new house, you should read the 2005 California Building Energy Efficiency Standards:

• during the design stage when you are working with an architect, and
• again during the construction stage before you head out to the lighting store to pick your lighting fixtures.

Here’s all you need to know: “The most dramatic change since the previous Standards is that high efficacy luminaires are required for almost all rooms in residential buildings.” In other words, if you are installing something other than fluorescent lighting (and using screw-in compact fluorescents doesn’t count), California imposes all these additional requirements—some easier to satisfy than others.