Garage Door

This past summer we ran into a problem with our garage door.  For a couple of weeks the electric eye wasn't working.  So we were unable to close the garage door with the remotes.  It would close, but you had to hold the button in the garage until the door was all the way down.  The remotes still worked to open the door so I dealt with having to get out of the car to close it.  Well that lasted for about a week and a half or two weeks, and suddenly the electric eye started working again, so I just left it.

I want to say it was sometime around the end of September that the eye went out again.  After a week or two, I decided that the eye was broken and I needed to get a new one.  I did hit it last winter with the snowthrower so I figured that it just took that long for the thing to finally give out.  I pulled out the instruction manual to see if I could order spare parts (it is a Genie), and there was a section for doing that, however, the only part not included was the electric eye.  Seriously, why would I need to order a spare track for the door arm, but they don't feel it necessary to include the electric eye.  So I got the 800 number to call and see if I could get a replacement, and I couldn't even get past the automated messages unless I had the model number and serial number of the door (which is located behind some panel up on the motor.  I was calling during the day from work, so I had to wait until I got home to get it.  Unfortunately, I was busy with other things when I got home and I never got around to getting the ladder out and taking the panel off.

That was back in the middle of October, because I was still working at Krueger at the time.  With the cold weather that just got here, I decided I needed to get on it.  I thought I would try looking on the Genie website and seeing if I could just order it online.  Well they didn't even list my model on their site.  As a last resort I just searched replacement Genie garage door parts.  It took me about 60 seconds to find a place to order a replacement electric eye, and in all places, Amazon.  And it only cost me $15 + shipping.  The part got here last Friday and I took the old eye and receptor out and put the new ones in in about 10 minutes.  It's working as good as new now, which is nice because it would have really sucked having to get out of the car in the snow yesterday to close the garage door before going to work.  I could kick myself for not just searching for the part online first.