A1 Garage Door Service - Garage Door Maintenance

Tommy Mello from A1 Garage Door Service joins Check A Pro Joe on this episode of Check A Pro Radio. Tommy talks about garage doors, maintenance and some of the latest technology in the garage door industry.

A1 is a leader in the garage door industry!  Check out this episode to learn how the A1 team delivers the best service in the industry.

For assistance with your garage doors please call A1 Garage Door Service -

(844) 214-2025.

Log on to - www.a1garage.com

 

 

 

This is the check a pro radio show check a pro Joe has assembled a team of pre-qualified home service contractors to bring you the latest in services products and techniques now here's your host the man with a hard hat and tool belt checkup row Joe Tommy Mellow how are you doing my friend doing great got done working out with the trainer so things are good! Hey I get a lot of questions from people being in home service from my point of view a lot of questions come up and the question of the day is when people buy a home whether it's new or an existing home you know they have a garage door already in there what is that garage door who's made that garage door who's got the warranty on that garage door in most cases is a regular house not a custom home but a regular home is that a good door or is that considered like a builder door so that's a really great question and what I could tell you is there's larger manufacturers of garage doors throughout the country that own a lot of them but as far as new construction is concerned there's a company called Wayne Dalton and Wayne Dalton is a mammoth company they do most of the new home construction they've got different series stores 9100 is there common one 'cause it's semi insulated it's it's in my opinion it's kind of a flimsy door it's it's a cheap door but it's good for the builders they get a discount and rebates and things like that but Wayne Dalton has an interesting product because they've got proprietary springs called the torque master or a Torquemaster plus spring system and we do a lot of work our way Dallas is because that's just the majority of what the words get installed on a new home and it's interesting because years and years ago Joe it started out that Wayne Dalton had a five year warranty when you bought the home and had a five year warranty on parts and then they went to three-year on their torque masters then they went to one year now why would you warranty a product for one year and I'm not slamming wait Dalton I'm just telling you this is their policies on their website and with their products Can you imagine why you would have a one year warranty well first of all you're limiting your liability but you're not backing up your product I mean if it only has a one year warranty that means that it may not last more than a year they usually last 14-15 maybe two years it's all out cycle life so each time that it goes up and down as a cycle So what we do is we've got an opportunity to replace that torquemaster which by the way usually special order so it's a couple weeks out if you call Wayne Dalton they're primarily installation so they don't have a big service department they're usually out four to six weeks and during the pandemic they got behind right now they're I I've heard over a year behind on things we take a torquemaster we take down and we put a torsion spring conversion system so we put a conventional torque tube drums cables bearing plates and springs then we could give a lifetime warranty because that goes from a low cycle to an 80,000 cycles so if you use your door 10 times a day you're using it a few thousand times a year that's gonna last you I don't know 20 some odd years and we get a lot of calls 9100 it's lightly insulated door now check this out a regular door weighs about 160 pounds Wayne Dalton insulated 9100 weighs about 140 pounds so that just tells you it's literally II if I push really hard I can plug my finger through the door so it's like aluminum foil it is like a really, really heavy it's a well done foil it literally is like baked on foil and if you took a pencil you stick it through II it's a little thinner than a paint can OK so it's very efficient for them it's not that expensive but they're getting the job done because their job is to make sure that the builder has a door to put on the House so when you buy the home you have a door just like you'll have some paint and you'll have some carpet but it's kind of what we call builder grade well this is what I look at when I buy a home Joe I go out there and I look at certain things you could tell a lot believe it or not by the garage because you know as a garage door guys say what kind of opener did they put in or what kind of door did they put in because then I could basically tell you did they did they go the cheapest on the cabinets did they go they did they you know go with the slow closed cabinets what did they do on the outlets what do they do with the fans what do they do with most electronics in the home and there's certain things I look at when I'm looking at a new home I found out so my house was built in 1974 in Scottsdale we started doing a lot of construction in 2013 to my current house and the guy built it instead of two by fours he did two by threes throughout the whole neighborhood 2 by threes interior walls I hope yeah yeah I mean I went in there and really I mean the house never it's not gonna blow down or anything but I tell you what there's certain builders that just take corners and I'm not saying we don't have that product that really really great products but they're builder great is unfortunate because um what weight oil to try to do years and years ago is they try to come out I build all their open primary stuff well there's been recalls on most of it and they had a really strong engineering team that there was just a lot of issues and you know you wanna try that route you stick with Chamberlain products which is Liftmaster but we do a lot of work like I'm glad we dogs have business because it gives us a future especially other builder grade you know a lot of people are looking for the quick fix and we know builders are builders are really looking to get something that they can put in there and get that house sold because ultimately even if there's a one year warranty on the House from the builder sells a new house it's now the homeowners responsibility for everything in that home you really need to beware guys out there when you're looking at homes you know look at the garage door ask the inspector when you have the house inspected tell me about this garage door and actually you know knock on it see if your finger goes through it you know they they have some carriage style doors the 9700 the 6600 the 9405 and 9510 I mean they the most common door is there 83185 hundred models and then the door that I was talking about was there 9100 but they do have nice stores you know you got there 8000 series which is your typical non insulated I mean uh uh garage door done right install properly with the right struts will do good it's just you gotta look at the quality if you want it to last and it goes along with other things if you want a wood door you gotta put a clear coat on it every year or otherwise you know those those are expensive they're beautiful doors but they're very heavy they cost a lot to fix because there's a lot more parts they're bigger parts but I'll tell you what overall I love the garage door history because there's so many reasons why garage doors make sense number one you're probably using it as the entry door to your home so using it like your front number two door it's 40% of your curb appeal number three it’s the number one return on investment on the home five years in a row remodel magazine #5 I think I'm at the insulation could save you a lot of money on your electric bill it's going green and #6 is you could open your garage door from anywhere you could be in in in Europe and let your neighbors go in there to check on everything and row with the doors open or closed or get a notification let's say your daughter shows up at midnight one day from a date you know she got home at midnight there's no line about that so you got access through your phone through the garage and I just love it 'cause I'm packages now right into the garage so it's safe you don't have to worry about it getting you know the theft on the front porch I I just I'm glad it's not just you look at a track and keeping the house cool in the summer is important but we've got curb appeal we've got energy efficiency we've got the technology we've got a lot of cool things that's where you put your cars and your pastimes your golf clubs and end your Christmas lights and all that stuff so I'm just I'm fortunate to have found this industry yeah so many people use that garage door as their front door as you said Tommy they also use it as a storage unit and of course they're gonna park there baby in there but I'll tell you what happens people take it for granted until the garage door doesn't operate properly either the garage door operator or garage door opener has failed usually the spring is a big failure point and if here at Big Bang it means you gotta problem there and do not try to move the door yourself you won't be able to you gotta call a professional but getting back to the quality of the doors in the beginning anything new it's like a young person I joke about this all the time 'cause I'm getting a little older back in my 20s I could abuse myself a little bit more because my parts were younger but as I get older my parts aren't as young I have to take more care so as that garage door gets older if it's not a well-built door with great parts it's more likely to fail the question I always ask people Joe is do you run your car till it breaks or do you change the oil and there's specific things you do at 90,000 miles on the vehicle they don't look at the parts are bad they replace all the hoses they replace certain parts on the car regardless they don't wait for them to fail 'cause if you wait for something to fail it gets expensive it's dangerous and it never is a good timing so it's just like on a garage door we should come check out the parts before they completely fail because that's dangerous and it's not good for timing it never is and that's what I would tell people is and it's starting to make noise if you hadn't had a lubricated or looked at then you need to call a pro out there that they are dangerous you know last America report there's 40,000 reported and I'm sure probably 100,000 not reported issues so it's one of those things where it just happens at the worst time possible and I just I I hear doors and I'm like one day I was showing a guy his door and I didn't realize that he had the door off and I pulled the cord and the garage door was like a slingshot just it was like a just slams down and I'm like dude you got a broken spring and I showed him he goes that wasn't like that I go I just walked in here and pulled the red chord I didn't break your spring it gate couldn't believe it 'cause the opener is sometimes a really powerful opener could work off of 1 spring so you still got one spring helping but end it'll keep the cable tension but overall but you know I'm fortunate to be in this industry I think we're a great company we look out after our clients we can work on any make and model and the question I was asking myself is this for affixing or is it a better investment to replace it and my goal is not to have to see you every six months like most companies not some of these guys they go to Band-Aid fixes and you're out there if I've got bad breaks check out the rotors and calipers to make sure they're doing their job for me 'cause if they're not the brakes are gonna go bad every few months you're right maintenance is not that expensive either in the garage door space you guys have a program what is it 9 or 10 bucks a month or something yeah you know $9.95 a month and we come out once a year with lubricated just saying everything on the door you get cut in front of line for this batch and we're open nights weekends holidays you also get 15% off the bill we take care of our members we call those club members and it's a great relationship and our goal is hopefully one day you know 5-10 years on the line it shows us to replace the door because overtime it gets dense it fatigues it gets oxidized the trim wears out and our goal is to take kind of a and approach of let's build a relationship with you over the years to be your trusted advisor in your garage hoping that one day you'll make an investment into the home and will be the choice because we built that relationship. Many homeowners will have a plumbing guy an electrician in AC guy you've really got to have a garage door guy and you don't think much about it until it's Monday morning two kids in the back seat it's 6:45 AM gotta get to daycare and that meeting 'cause you're presenting that morning and your garage door doesn't open you will not get that Lexus out will you no no and it you know it's important you know I just got my floors done by our company two days ago we got the full chip epoxy it's a form of epoxy and um it looks absolutely phenomenal and I'm just I'm kind of embarrassed because I went to cheap way with the rust oleum Home Depot like a decade ago and I gotta tell you night and day when we did the floors it just looks like a premium house now I just I can't even explain it it's a garage floor but it's just nice and it just tells its a caliber of the home and you know I'm putting the storage in there and in Arizona we don't have basements so you're right I I got I have a lot of stuff everything from golf clubs I just got five electric bikes I got two that I bought two more than I just bought a tricycle because I'm near Old Town Scottsdale So what better than they have friends over yeah so they're charging in the garage all the time I just think it looks like a premium garage now you know it's interesting I was talking to Dan Antonelli from Kick Charge Creative today we were talking about branding of course it's not necessarily the vehicle it's how the vehicle looks same thing could be for the uniform on the individual well if your house is an OK house you can really make it look great Tommy had said a few moments ago that 30-40% of the facade of the home, the curb appeal is the garage doors you guys can swap out one or two garage doors in an afternoon and it'll look superb so my point is you can get your garage floor epoxy you can get new garage doors you can paint the house and you don't really have to have an expensive house to make it nice So what else Joe this is very simple but I have a buddy of mine he works at it's called snowman and it's where we recycle our metal so all of our old springs doors and he ordered a door from us and unfortunately the manufacturers got behind with this this pandemic so he was not happy but I said you know what let me come out there it just got installed I said let me put some decorative hardware on it gave him two nice kids and this is magnetic but it looks so good and I put the magnetic hardware on there and it's got the handles and he was just floored he was just so happy he goes, dude I had no idea that that little add on would make such a big difference on the quality of the home and it really does you put a couple sets on it looks like a carriage house style door and you know it doesn't look good on the cheek door it looks it looks it kind of looks like a Denny's steak if you and you put it on a cheap door but have you got a decent door and you got windows or something then you put it on it and I go lung panel which is 4 rectangles versus the eight squares it really looks nice alright Tommy hey thanks for your time I appreciate it Tommy mele one garage door service A1 garage.com check out their Jingle too I love that whenever I say A1 garage.com when i'm giving out the website I think of A1 garage. Can you sing it for us Tommy A1 from day one it's awesome tell me mellow thank you so much appreciate it thanks Joe from day one check a pro is your local source for pre qualified contractors stay tuned for more of the check a pro radio show!