Roll-up overhead garage door and mail slot complete

The new Amarr Weathergaurd manufactured garage door is complete. The entire process took our installer 3 1/2 hours, so even though he was 1 1/2 hours late showing up, he was done by 6:00 p.m. He was friendly and communicated well which is a pleasant surprise.

This new garage door is far more secure than the old garage door, and it's operation is smooth and quiet. The extra light that comes through the windows is an added bonus.

The windows are made from either acrylic or poly carbonate. We'll see how they stand up to the uv from the sun, but only time will tell on that and they look fairly easy to replace if needed. A quick trip to TAP Plastics and replacement windows can easily be obtained.

The white color of the door looks fine and blends right in with the white used as trim outside the house. The old garage door was painted using the base color of the house, but having it all white looks fine since it matches. And the front door of the house is white too, so everything blends just fine.

The mail delivery in this neighborhood is through a mail slot in the garage door. This is a nice security feature since once the mail is delivered, it's not accessible to anyone like your mail in a curb side mail box is.

This mail slot came with a basket that catches the mail for easy retrieval. The basket swivels so that when the garage door is opened it continues to hold the mail without spilling it out onto the floor. The old mail slot had no basket, and the mail just dropped to the floor making it a pain to bend over and scoop up. Plus mail would routinely drop and slide out under the old door which didn't close all the way. And the mail delivery person wouldn't bother to kick it back under the door.

One thing about this though, the mail slot doesn't actually work! You try to lift the little door over the slot and it wouldn't open. Plus the holes for the screws were drilled too large, so the screws holding the mail slot on the door where just flopping around.

It seems that the slot our installer cut in the door for the mail slot was too small, and that when you tried to lift the mail slot, it would bind against the door, preventing the mail slot from opening. In short, this part of the job was botched, and our installer took off without finishing this part of the job. Perhaps he just forgot that it needed more attention, but this kind of thing is bound to happen when your installer shows up late on a Friday before a long weekend.

I had to leave the mail slot door off of the garge door so that our mail could be delivered. It looks terrible, but hopefully the contractor will live up to their DiamondStar rating, and make it right without any hassles.

So check that everything works before handing over your final payment. Everything! Don't just take for granted that everything works. It could cost you a lot of money if you have to take more time off work.

Also, Garage door safety is probably something you never think about. But there's good reason to think about it once in a while.

Common typos:  garge