My upper arms could use a work-out anyway. Our house was built in the late-1970s and has the original electric garage door opener. One problem, the handheld remotes are both broken. We bought a soldering gun several years ago, and I have been soldering a key wire into place, repeatedly. It breaks off, I solder it back on, etc. That worked for years. Not so, this past spring. It broke off and even after soldering it back on, the remote doesn't work. It looks like the contact pad is plain worn out.
For several months, I used the interior switch for the door openers, opening the garage door from inside the garage, backing the car out, getting out of the car, closing the garage door from the inside of the garage, going out a back door of the garage, around the house, and to the driveway. That works, but it was far from convenient.
The remotes are no longer available for our very old model, and now is not the time to buy a new garage door opener and have it installed. So, what to do. My daughter had some time this summer to do some jobs for me. So, she and I picked out some heavy-duty handles from Home Depot's website (for about $7.50 each), she went to the store, then came home and installed handles on both doors. Afterward, she unhooked the brace which attaches the electric opener to the door. We now open and close the garage door just as my parents did when I was a girl, with our muscles. It's actually a good stretch for me everyday. And I think it was a valuable lesson for my daughter to work with me on a workable solution to our problem that would not cost us a bunch of money, and didn't require any expertise to achieve.
So, is this any less inconvenient than using the interior switch inside the garage? I would have to say that the old-school way is slightly better. Obviously, having a working electric garage door would be preferable. But for now, we have a solution with which we're satisfied.
