For quite some time I've been annoyed with Hil's garage door opener. The device itself is quite nice, it even has a battery backup that can open and close the door when the power is out. But it was wired to a permanently-installed extension cord, and that is not the proper way to do things.

I'm serious about the "permanently installed" part, too. The extension cord actually was connected to structure with wiring staples, and passed through the overhead joists[1] through drilled holes. It was one of those extension cords where you take some wire of whatever length and then attach plugs at each end, so the installer clearly did 90% of the work of actually wiring things correctly (e.g. drilling holes, banging in staples) but then screwed on a male and a female plug at the relevant ends instead of putting up an outlet up near the actual garage door opener, and wiring the other end into the existing outlet.

So I ripped out the old wire and replaced it with new, and put in a proper outlet. Naturally, things never go according to plan, and I ended up also installing a new junction box on the wall, because the existing outlet was too crowded to get more wires inside, which is probably why the original installed went and did the wrong thing in the first place.

In the process of doing this, I learned yet more about the crazy wiring in Hil's house. For instance, there is a circuit breaker labelled "garage". When I tripped it, it did indeed cut off power to the garage. It also killed one of the lights in the basement, but as that light is near where the power line exits the basement to head to the detached garage, I am sympathetic to whomever wired that in. On the other hand, it turns out that the overhead light in the dining room is also on the same circuit as the garage. The reasoning behind that mystifies me.

I finished the job as it was getting dark, turned the power back on, and confirmed that the door did indeed go up and down as it ought. Then I transferred two giant paper bags full of fallen leaves from the garage to the curb, because tomorrow is the day when the city will collect said leaves, and we don't have a compost pile here. When I finished, I pressed the button to lower the garage door… and it refused, flashing to indicate that it's obstruction sensor was tripped. I am assuming I bumped the sensor while moving bags of leaves around. Trying to get the sensor properly aimed again was not going very well in the dark, so I overrode the sensor and I guess I'll go out there and fix that part tomorrow.

Also on the agenda is seeing why the overhead florescent lights sometimes do not turn on when the switches are flipped. I'm about 90% sure the switches have gone bad, so I'll probably start with replacing them. Or, ooh, new thought– before I go to the hassle of replacing any switches, I will carefully put a temporary jumper across each switch and see if the lights go on. If not, I know it's the ballasts.

[1] I originally wrote "ceiling joists", but upon reflection, there is no ceiling in the garage.

Posted by: Boviate at 06:40 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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