TL/DR: You're good here. Call the number, ask for Pavel, and enjoy having both a repaired garage door as well some faith in humanity restored.
I think maybe I've posted three reviews on Homestars in my life - I wish there was a way to make it clear that this is a genuine review. Hopefully this will help. If you're like us then the following will sound familiar:
- You've given your garage door maintenance almost zero consideration for the better part of a decade, until of course the moment where it fails.
- Suddenly you're staring at a garage door base that sits diagonally against the floor, only slightly, but just enough for you to be certain that by the end of the day - and certainly by the next morning - you will have an infestation of who-knows-what inhabiting your garage.
- You've no idea how this happened, but you set about planning the fix by of course asking Uncle YouTube how to fix this kind of thing. At which point your heart sinks as you see pictures of strange winding tools, and start to hear things like "be very careful, thousands of lbs of torque, extremely dangerous springs, risk injury or death". You then do two things. 1. You abandon any delusion that you're going to attempt this yourself, and 2. You resolve never to pick a second career in garage door installation or repair.
- At this point you start looking around for garage door repair places, and your heart sinks once more as all the places look the same, all of them look generic, and none of the reviews look trustworthy.
Okay, so now - somewhat incredibly - skip ahead just three hours.
- I called Homeland Garage Doors mainly because they looked to be local in Vaughan on Google Maps, although one never can tell due these sometimes being central numbers.
- The lady that spoke on the phone advised me that we could have a same day technician out in a few hours, for a $29 quote, which would be refunded if we proceeded. So far so good. We set a 2hr time window in 3 hrs time and I was advised the technician would call.
- I asked if she could offer any kind of preview of the kind of range of costs that could be involved - but she was very careful not to do so. This part was not so good, but I decided to stick with it, albeit slightly wary of the exposure.
- Exactly a the assigned time, Pavel called and advised he was 30 mins out. Instantly I felt slightly more optimistic by his bright, friendly and communicative tone. Admittedly this was probably just some blind hope.
- Pavel arrived on time, and he was every bit the kind soul he sounded on the phone. You know those people that just stand out because they have an aura of goodness about them? That was the first impression of Pavel.
- The second impression was a mix of surprise and admiration, as it cannot have taken Pavel more than about 35 seconds to diagnose the problem, and within another 60 seconds he had walked me through the fixes involved and, upon my asking, the approximate roll up cost I should expect.
- Basically the cable on one side had broken. This was due to rust on the brackets at the bottom of the door, which had subsequently spread to the cable and the whole thing had snapped.
- Diplomatically overlooking the mess that was our garage, Pavel helped me move a few items to provide some working space, and within about 30-40 minutes I had new brackets, a new cable, new nylon wheel runners, a small fix to the upper door bracket, and everything freshly lubricated.
- Even more impressively, Pavel explained everything he was doing along the way, along with some helpful advice and guidance for how to look out similar issues happening with our other garage door, and a demonstration of the maintenance required.
- He also answered every question I had about garage doors - from the price of fixes to the price of replacements, to different kinds of doors, and current supply issues driving pricing and lead times in the market.
- I actually suspect he may secretly be Gandalf for Garage Door repairs.
In the end the price of the fix was more than I was originally hoping for when I first started googling. But now having looked into it, I'm happy that the money was well spent - not just fixing the emergency issue at hand, but also taking care of a niggling issue with the door that at some point was going to cause more damage, and finally giving me a tutorial on how to extend the life of my garage doors.
All of this came with a kindness, professionalism and reassuring competence that far exceeded my expectations.
I don't know why I've written such a long review, as I know no-one wants to read all this. But sometimes its nice to just recognize goodness and excellence when one sees it - partly for the person who shows it, and partly just because its nice to be reminded that there are good people in the world and that humanity may not be quite so doomed after all.
To Pavel - thank you. To Homeland - thank you, and know you have a gem of a person on your hands.
And to anyone that made it to the end here, (a) thank you, (b) apologies, and (c) hopefully you know what to do now. Good luck!
Thank you
Nadeem, Toronto
