Monday, May 30, 2016

The Great Garage Door Opener Debacle

I had been holding off on writing this post because I was holding out hope that it would be remedied. 

I feel silly even writing about and getting upset over this, but at the end of the day, it comes down to paying for something we never wanted.

In our area, a garage door opener is an option, an extremely overpriced option. They charge $550 for a basic garage door opener. We researched and found a smart garage door opener that we could purchase and have installed for around $330. It is significantly nicer and would cost us $220 less, not to mention the extra $3/month for 30 years. This means the garage door opener through RH would cost us $1080 over our 30-year mortgage. 

Since our 30-day final change meeting, we have repeatedly said we didn't want the garage door opener in our options. We thought it was removed from our list. Our 14-day and 30-day meetings were both rushed and hectic. Our SR was out a lot leading up to them between the massive snow and his wife having a baby. Somehow removing the garage door opener was missed by us & our SR. We thought it was taken care of and our SR missed it. 

However, the mistake was never caught. We mentioned it at the 30-day, the pre-construction, the pre-drywall, and our most recent walkthrough. No one ever said to us, "hey this is still on your options list" until our most recent walkthrough. Our PM said he thought we were getting one, but he would look into it. 

Next thing we know, I drive by and notice the exterior keypad. What the heck?! My husband contacted our PM. He said it was on the list and was installed, but he had no problem taking it out if RH would credit us for it because we are paying for it. Thursday we called our SR. He said he would talk to his supervisor, but he didn't think they would do anything. He remembered us saying that we didn't want it but not specifically requesting it being removed. Uhm....? Yeah, okay. He promised to call us back. Friday afternoon, we hadn't heard anything, so my husband called. Our SR said he didn't know anything yet, but he would call us before the end of the day. He never called us back Friday. Figures. (This not-so-good communication has been a trend.) My husband called him Saturday, and he said that his supervisors said no. We then requested his supervisor call us and speak with us directly. Well, she's off until Tuesday, but our SR said she's just going to tell us the same thing. 

Are you serious Ryan Homes?? You're going to make an upset customer over a $550 garage door opener?? 

I genuinely don't understand why this is so difficult. We were told it was "against the rules". WHAT RULES?! Where are these rules?? 

Meanwhile, the garage door opener we actually want is on sale. We don't know if we should go ahead and buy it or not. Our PM is going to give us more information on the garage door opener that is installed when he goes to work on Tuesday. We want to know if it is a chain or belt, what brand, etc. to see if it's worth keeping and just purchasing an add-on to make it a smart garage door opener. Our PM seems to be the only one in this loop that has any sense of customer satisfaction and desire to make us a home we love. 

I don't think we are being unreasonable. We're not asking for something for nothing. We're asking for something to be removed that we never wanted. (and said we never wanted from the beginning) 


Any thoughts? Opinions? Ideas? Am I being ridiculous? Would you be upset? What would you do??



Thanks!

5 comments:

  1. My wife and I experienced a similar situation. We purchased our house about ten years ago. It came with some off-brand garage system that's given us trouble off and on, and recently, it died on us. We're looking for a new automatic opener, but they're very pricey! I don't have any recommendations, but be sure to post what you find!

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  2. Well, now you know about purchasing products or items and dealing with the installers. Unfortunately, this happens all too often--be it a garage door opener or a can opener. People just do not stand by their promises or guarantees anymore. They know what a hassle it is for people to get the help they want--even if have a written guarantee. Sorry to hear about this. Thank God there're are some good companies that do stand by their guarantees, deeds, sales contracts or anything else they offer.

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  3. Can I just say what a relief to find someone who actually knows what theyre talking about on the internet. You definitely know how to bring an issue to light and make it important. More people need to read this and understand this side of the story. I cant believe youre not more popular because you definitely have the gift.
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  4. There are certainly a lot of details like that to take into consideration. That is a great point to bring up. I offer the thoughts above as general inspiration but clearly there are questions like the one you bring up where the most important thing will be working in honest good faith. I don?t know if best practices have emerged around things like that, but I am sure that your job is clearly identified as a fair game. Both boys and girls feel the impact of just a moment?s pleasure, for the rest of their lives.
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  5. However, this cannot be done in Birmingham, Alabama unless you hire a professional garage door repair service to do it for you. In addition, you should check and replace the safety wires every few years to ensure that the extension chain does not break or become loose. To learn more about garage door repair birmingham al, visit on hyperlinked site.

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