ChatGPT Fixes My Garage Door: Homeowner Hacks

This is episode number 345 of The Homeowner Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hackett, and here with me is Craig Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The Homeowner Show. We are so glad that you could join us for another episode here in The Homeowner Show studios. How you doing, Kev?

I'm good, man. just, uh, you know, everything's pretty good. Feels like back into a rhythm a little bit. School is back in, kids are going back to school, traffic is back at a normal heaviness.

Got to put a stop to that.

Yeah, I know.

We need some of y'all to move away.

It— yeah, it was actually great whenever school was out. Yeah, getting anywhere early morning, no problem. This morning I looked at my, which I, it is a commute, I guess, from my house to where I work. But it said 40 minutes and I was like, great.

That's disgusting.

Because normally like 25 minutes, I'm there. So an additional 15 minutes is a lot.

Yeah.

You know? So, but man, like I'm just a, I'm a person that likes routine. Even though I would like to say that I'm spontaneous if I need to be, I can kind of go with the flow. I still like to know.

You like a little routine. Yeah.

And I think most people probably do. So I like routine.

Yeah. We're looking for some property for our new office.

Oh yeah.

And so kind of what's a sticking point for us is we really don't want it to be more than like a 30-minute drive for us.

Right.

The, the owners. Sure. You know?

Yeah.

The, uh, anyway, uh, well, they, well, I mean, look, they make their choice. Yeah.

Wherever you want to live, that's where you want. Yeah.

So like there's, there's places where we can go where it's, it's less than 30 minutes for us, but for some of our employees, it's like kind of sticking it to 'em a little bit. Well, and we're not doing that on purpose. It's just like sometimes that's where you can afford the property. Sure. Sometimes it has the right amenities. Sometimes it has the, but And so honestly, we're struggling to find the right spot. It's not easy.

Well, because you probably have an idea of where you want to be.

Oh yeah.

But that place is either too expensive or doesn't exist.

Both. Both.

Exactly.

All of it right now. It's stupid. Or if it's even slightly affordable, it's in a floodplain around here. That's the way it goes.

So the worst there.

I mean, usually I'm happy to see a creek. Yeah, I like a good creek. Sure. But for whatever reason, that puts property at a flood risk. Yeah. Someone— I didn't take elevation when I was in high school, apparently.

No. Well, it's like the old saying, as long as the creek don't rise.

God willing and the creek don't rise.

Exactly. Yeah, I only said half of it, but The, the, the creek rises around here.

It does.

It just keeps, keeps rising.

Yeah.

You know?

Yep. So anyway, we have a, we have a goal to have that done by April.

Okay.

Um, because we need it.

Sure.

Um, so hopefully part of what we're going to talk about tonight is going to be beneficial to us.

Sounds like it.

Um, but anyway, we got some, uh, got some fun stuff going along. We got some, some fun interviews.

Yeah.

Coming up this year that we're excited about. We gotta, you know, get some hard dates on the calendar so we can start sharing those with everybody.

That's right.

Um, but it's gonna be, I think it's gonna be an interesting year, man.

Yeah. I'm, I'm looking forward to it, man. I, I think it's, it's very interesting cuz, you know, we, I, I don't know about you, but when, when, um, other people talk to me about the podcast, mm-hmm, they're like, how long have you been doing that? And I'm like, well, we've got, it's about been about 7 and a half years.

Yeah.

And they're like, 7 and a half years. And I'm like, oh yeah. And they're like, how many episodes? I tell them, oh, it's almost 350 or whatever. They're like, holy cow, like, that's insane. And every once in a while it does hit me that that's a long time.

Yeah, it doesn't feel like it, does it?

It doesn't. It really doesn't. Mainly because we enjoy what we do. But like, it is a bit interesting. But now, like, we're in this— we've been doing it long enough that the unknown of what the year looks like still feels like it's going to be pretty cool.

Yeah.

Because we've already been able to interview some pretty cool people, get in front of some really, really interesting people, learn so much. I mean, just about owning a home and everything that surrounds that. I feel like I— it's so funny. Do you ever feel like you're just a in, in many ways, like a jack of all trades. Like, I almost feel like that after being part of this show for so long. Um, I, I kind of have a pretty good knowledge of a lot of different things.

Yeah. I try and tell people, it's like, I know enough to get myself into trouble.

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah.

But I also know who to call when I get into trouble. That's right. So there's that, you know?

Yeah.

But yeah, no, I think 2026 could be good.

Yeah, I actually was talking to Eric G on the phone the other day.

Okay.

And we had a good chat just kind of talking about what's coming up in 2026. And he's excited about what's going on with him. I didn't realize there was a— this is one of the things he was telling me. It was sad to hear that podcast, The Money Pit.

Oh. Uh-huh.

So the guys died suddenly.

What?

Yeah. And that show, I didn't realize it was a radio show.

Oh yeah. Before it was a podcast?

Right.

Okay.

And so it had been on the air for a long time. And apparently he, and I think this has been more than a year ago now that all this happened, but he passed away and then his wife kind of tried to carry on with the show and it just wasn't doable. And so they just had to shut the thing down.

Interesting.

And it kind of left this wide lane in our arena with an institution like that. Because I think those guys were somehow connected to This Old House, but This Old House was up for a while as a podcast and it's not even doing a podcast anymore.

Sure.

At least I don't think so. I haven't checked in a while. That's one of the weird things about doing this is everyone thinks that we all know each other.

Yeah.

And like, we don't really even pay attention to each other that much. I mean, other than like, oh, that jerk's up on me.

Yeah, right.

I don't even know what he's doing. Well, I think I was, I was 2 and now I'm 3 and he's 2.

Yeah, jerk. Like, I, look, I, I think that part of it is there are podcasts out there that are just like full bore. This is their 100% gig. They don't do anything else. This is their moneymaker.

Yeah.

You know, they're, their source of finances, all that kind of stuff. That's not it for us. No, we do it because we want to.

Um, even though like those are our peers. Sure. You know what I mean? Like we, like we, we hang out on the charts with these guys. Right. Like we're still like, but like we're not making the money they make. No. I don't know why.

Well, because we're not, we're, we're not, we're, we're not in it for the money.

I, that, I mean, like, I mean, I, I, here's the thing is I think if you and I, if we just like, you know what, we quit everything else and we're just gonna do this. I think if you and I focused on this as like our full-time gig, we could probably do something with it.

Sure.

You know, but we just don't.

We don't.

We just enjoy making the show, talking to people and, and doing the thing.

Yeah. No, we, we could absolutely make it work because again, 7 and a half years. I mean, anything you, you, you do for that long, right? You, you become good at it. You also understand what you're doing better and better. You know who you can talk to about certain things. But also, you, I mean, with that amount of history, sponsorships are, you know, available.

Yeah.

And, you know, different things like that. So, I mean, yes. Could it be viable?

Sure.

But we got, we got other things.

Yeah.

This is just one of them.

We're just having fun over here. Yeah. Well, one, I mean, I, I know we're gonna talk about your garage door opener.

Sure.

Yeah. What's, what's, what's the brand on that, by the way?

So the one that I wound up getting was a Chamberlain.

Chamberlain. Okay.

So do we want to talk, like, jump into it?

Well, I was, I was just gonna, I was gonna do the home news real quick. Let's do that. Because it's, it's, it's, you know, it's, it's actually good. It's some happy news. Yeah.

Yeah.

So we, like, according to reports, and I've, I've run this by a few broker friends of mine just to verify, but we are seeing the lowest rates in home loans since 2023.

Oh my goodness. That's, that's over 2 years, man.

I know.

Like, that feels like forever when it comes to this kind of thing.

Yeah. And, and we, we, we— I know we always circle back around to this, but like, let's just go ahead and rip the Band-Aid off of what I think, and I think you agree with me, is that mortgage rates haven't been too high. No, I think they haven't been too bad.

No, we, we— the problem is we experienced something after COVID It was unprecedented.

Well, and during—

And yeah, sure. But like when, when, when rates drop below 3%, that is like free money.

Yeah.

It's, it's just nothing.

So once, I mean, like it, it should be and is a once in a lifetime thing.

Yeah.

I mean, like, you know, thankfully, thankfully we got on that. I think you got—

We got close.

You got close. We were as close as you could get probably at the time.

Yeah. We were in the midst of a transition and if we weren't, we would've jumped on it.

Yeah.

We wound up still landing in a pretty good place.

Right.

So we're at 4.99 on ours. Okay. So we landed at a pretty good place.

Yeah. I know we're in the 3s. I think it's like a 3.7 or something like that. But we were actually able to get that because we, I think we took it down to like a 15-year note. Sure. But anyway, the problem is 6% wasn't bad. The problem is that the prices were still just, drastically overflated. Right. And, and so you, and this is, this is something that this article was even bringing up is like, yeah, the rates are good. And what we're seeing for like FHA and VAs is 5.9s.

So good.

Which, I mean, feels great. And then like across the board for like traditional loans, you're seeing like really low 6s, like 6.01, 6.5. I mean, like somewhere in that range. Yeah. If you've got good credit, obviously. You know, that's gonna change if your credit's not great. But what this article was saying is that there's over 500,000 more home sellers than buyers right now. And, and so, you know, it's, it is a buyer's market. And so like, if it kind of hangs out in that ratio, the prices are gonna start to come down.

They will. They have to.

It, it, it just depends. I mean, people, people could kind of get a little buy happy because, you know, the, the rates are a little bit lower.

Um, but, but they also know, because if you're using a decent realtor, they know you— this house has been here for a little bit, right? You can negotiate.

Yeah.

So even though the, the rates are, are better than they've been, you've still got negotiation power.

Yeah.

Which is one of the things that whenever we bought our house, and really after we bought our house, you didn't have— you didn't have negotiating power and the rates were high. So it was like a lose-lose.

Yeah.

In that situation.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's going to be interesting to see what happens. Um, but like, just because anytime the rates drop like this where it gets below 6, people who have been waiting to buy, I think, are going to start jumping in the pool. Sure. Um, you know, but, you know, who knows? It, it could, it could be that the prices are still so high You know, man, I was gonna see what, what the average price for like a home. I think it's hanging out in like the $400s.

That's, that would be my guess. Which, which honestly is pretty insane.

Yeah.

I mean, it's ridiculous for, I mean, just traditional 3/2. Yeah. When, when we were talking about this not too long ago about how, you know, your first house could be your forever house. Yeah. If that's $400,000, that's a lot of money.

Right.

You know, that's a lot of money. So I, yeah, it's crazy.

All right. So here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna, I'm gonna plug these numbers into the handy-dandy mortgage calculator.

Okay.

And we're gonna do a 5.9 over 30 years.

All right.

Yeah, I don't care. Take the ad away.

We ain't got time for that.

Okay, so if you bought it at $400,000—

no, how much down? Any down?

I didn't even put that in.

Yeah, I mean, like, let's just— let's not go crazy.

I was just trying to just like—

Like, like, just do like, do something, do something. Do like 5%. So do, do $20 grand down.

And this one's not letting me do that.

Oh, really?

No.

What kind of mortgage calculator is this?

I mean, so, I mean, this is just the straight numbers. Okay.

Straight numbers.

I mean, and that's why I like it, because it's easy. Because then, because you can go back in and play with a down payment and all. Okay. And because everybody's is different. But like, if you're at 5.9% for $400,000 over 30 years, your monthly payment roughly is going to be $2,372.

Okay.

So over the course of your loan, you're going to pay $854,000.

Right.

Right?

Yeah.

So, but like, if you take that—

Now that's without taxes or—

Right. None of that. That's just house price alone. This is just simple, simple, simple math.

Right.

So if I take it to like a 6.5 on the same amount, we have to watch an ad to get to that number. Of course we do. So, but thankfully it won't.

It's not too long.

It shouldn't be.

Is it? But is there just one? That's where they get you. It's a little short one and then another longer one comes right after it.

I hate— look, it's a, it's an ad for Royal Kingdom. They should be sending us some money for this crap.

Yeah, please.

What a stupid game. Yeah.

Um, I don't know.

It is. It's a long one and a short one.

Yeah, I told you. I don't know why that happens.

But I mean, like 20, 20, 2,300. I mean, let's call it 2,400.

Yeah.

With, cuz let's, let's assume PMI, which would probably make it 2,500.

Right.

You know, somewhere in that neighborhood. Um, that's not terrible. No, I mean, but like, it also depends on what you're getting because $400,000 in Boston isn't the same as $400,000 in Des Moines.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

So that's true. It's not a, it's not a complete fair comparison. Just gimme the numbers. Okay. That's not the numbers I wanted.

Oh, come on. You're gonna have to watch another ad.

I better not.

Uh, Terrible. There we go.

Okay. Okay. So at 6.5%, it's going to be $2,500, which would mean it's like, if you're paying PMI, it's going to be like $2,700.

Yeah. Taxes. But you're, you're immediately $200 more. And $200, especially in the market that we live in right now, like that's a—

It's groceries till Wednesday.

That's what I was just saying. That's at least half of a week of groceries, but it could be more like, I, yeah, I, I think that that $200, that can go a decent ways towards something else.

Right. But like, there's also near us, near us, and I'm, I'm speaking specifically about our market. There are homes that you can buy for less than $200,000.

Still available.

Still available. Yep.

And they're, and they're typically in, uh, newer, newer types of neighborhoods.

They're newer and smaller homes.

Smaller homes.

Very, very small.

Probably 1,500 square foot or less.

And here's, here's what I'll say about that. Like, a lot of people went to watch our clip from last week about me ranting and raving about, like, look, people, people need to be more content with their situation in life, essentially. And, you know, like, you could buy the first home that you ever bought and live in that forever.

Yeah.

I don't know that that's true about these homes.

Sure. It would be tough.

Right? I still think that even if you said, okay, I'm gonna buy this home and I'm gonna live in it for 5 years.

Mhmm.

I think that's money better spent than on an apartment.

Every day of the week.

So now there are people that are gonna disagree with me.

Yeah.

Because they don't wanna mow their own grass. Sure. Like whatever reason, whatever your re—

but those are—

your reasons are—

those don't include owning a home like that.

Yeah.

Those, those change the rules is, is the problem.

There's, there's not many financial situations that you could explain to me where the apartment is gonna be a better use of your money than putting it in the savings account of a piece of property. Right. It's just not. Now, are there circumstances where that could be true? Sure.

Yeah.

I mean, there just are.

Yeah.

Not many and not for many people.

Right.

So, you know, those kinds of places are available.

Right.

The problem is most people believe that they deserve better.

And especially over time, right?

But then in the same breath will tell me, well, I can't afford the one that I want. Well, then you don't deserve that one.

Right. Yet. Yet. Yeah. And, and who knows, like in, in 15 years, once you build up enough equity, you can probably buy that one.

Flip it into that, man.

Right.

I mean, like, again, absolutely. Like, I'm not saying like everyone has to do the thing where you stay in the same house your entire life.

Sure.

That's not practical for a lot of people. I mean, it is practi— let me rephrase that. That's practical for a lot of people.

For a lot of people it is.

For a lot of people, that is practical advice. For some people it's not. And it also is just okay to say, I don't want to. Yeah, that's fine too. But to whine and moan because you can't get the $500,000 one when, when there's a $200,000 one available, you just don't like it and it's not as pretty and the yard isn't as big.

Yeah. Yeah.

Suck it up, Sally.

That's right.

I'm sorry.

And the amount of money that you could put into a $200,000 house to make it a little bit nicer over time.

Yeah.

You know, to increase the value, to make it a little more livable the way you want it. Right?

That is an aspect of homeownership that we don't talk about a lot is we, we tend to talk about like what you can afford.

Yeah.

And almost everybody buys at the top end of what they can afford. Yep. Rather than the bottom end of what they can afford.

Yep.

And you, I, I'll almost promise you, you will have less stress in your life. Mm-hmm. And you will enjoy your home because you'll be able to purchase the amenities for the inside of the house that make you happy. I mean, like, what— who wants to sit in an empty house?

Nobody.

Nobody. I mean, like, buy a cheap house. Sure. And put nice stuff in it.

Yeah. Buy nice furniture.

Yeah.

Big TV. Whatever makes you happy.

Fill it up with whatever you want.

Right.

I mean, like, don't be an idiot and go into debt over it, but like, buy, buy which— buy the nice things that you wish that you could have had if you were sitting in a really nice, big, pretty house with nothing in your space. Yeah. Because Like, you got like a blowup futon.

Yeah, exactly. Because like, let's say, right, let's say you buy the big house and you're like, man, I want to have people over. And you're like, all right, cool. Um, what do you, what do you like to do whenever you have people over? Well, you know what a lot of people, at least around us, you know, they love to do? Smoke meat.

Yep.

I want to smoke meat all night the day before, have people over, and hang out. Well, guess what? I ain't got any money to buy a smoker because I bought the nice house for entertaining.

Yeah.

But I don't have a smoker, so I can't even do that, right? So now the thing that I bought the house to, to do, can't do it. But you buy a smaller house, a lesser house, a cheaper house, you can buy that and more. And guess what? Those same friends are going to come over. And guess what? They're gonna be happier because you got smoked meat.

Yep.

You know what I mean? Like, it's, it's a, it is a—

Nice patio furniture to sit on and enjoy said smoked meat.

Exactly. I think it's—

Plates to eat it on.

It is a mind game. Yeah. Of, of how do I, how do I work this out? I mean, one of the things that a lot of people, you know, I, I drive a 2004 truck. And I've driven a 2004 truck since 2004. So I, you know, a lot of people are like, don't— do you ever want something nicer? Like, yeah, I do. But you know what I don't want? Another payment. Yeah, I just don't, because it allows me to do something else.

Yeah, you can deploy that money elsewhere, right, where it's actually working for you, right?

And, and that truck does everything I need it to. Yeah, everything that I need that thing to do.

It does. Here's— and just, I mean, just observing you in that truck, you have upgraded that truck.

Oh, many times.

To most of the amenities that people want.

Yep.

In the nice truck that they wish that they could afford.

Yep.

But they can't because they bought a stupid big house.

That's right. It's so true.

Or they just, you know, go in over their heads and just pray to God that they're going to survive, which I don't, I don't understand that at all.

I don't know how you do it. Look, I would love for someone to email us and go, look, we went in way over our heads and here's how we're surviving. Because my guess, we're going to get a different email on this. My guess is that you're not only unhappy, but your marriage is probably—

Crap.

Less than good. And your kids, love somebody else's parents more than you. You know what I mean?

Yep.

Like, I just feel like things just kind of start degrading pretty quickly in areas that matter way more than the amount of money you're spending on that house. The relationships. Yep. You know, that's just my guess.

I'm getting them. I'm going to take, I'm going to roll those dice and see. I think it's going to roll the same number.

Yeah. I'm going to hit red often, whichever. Tell her I want to meet.

That little prediction?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anyway.

But so anyway, so the market's looking good.

It is.

Uh, people's thoughts on money, on the other hand, still pretty stupid. Yeah.

And look, let me just say this for a moment. You can get emails on this too. Like, say what you want and say whatever you want. Lots of things to say. There's plenty of things to say. about this, but our economy is stabilizing a little bit.

Yeah.

Even if, even if you don't like necessarily the way where it has stabilized, it's stabilized. And before the last year happened, it was unstable.

Yeah.

So I, I just find it to be interesting. I, you know, take it for what it's worth. Write us an email if you want to, but I just think that it's interesting to note that the current regime, who has lots of controversy around them, has stabilized some things and things are starting to feel a little better.

Yeah.

And people are happier with interest rates and they're buying things again.

Yeah.

You know, just interesting.

I saw something on Sunday that really pissed me off.

Okay. Can't wait to hear it.

So, and I'll just say right up front, I don't really have a position on the whole thing that happened in Minneapolis.

Sure.

I don't either. I've listened to lots of different, I think they're probably both wrong.

Yeah.

But anyway, on Sunday there was a lot of protests.

Yeah, there were.

Across the country. And I came across one as I was driving home. I was at a home for boys in foster care.

Okay.

But they're not in a foster home, they're at a boys' home.

Okay.

And I'm going to circle back around to why I think that's important. I came up to a bridge and I was riding in the car with my daughter, my teenage daughter. And I look over on the corner and there's a girl and she couldn't have been more than 7 years old.

Okay.

And she's standing there with her mom and the little girl is holding a sign that says, F Donald Trump.

No. Yeah.

And not F Donald Trump, but the full word. And her mom's standing there proud that her daughter's holding the sign. And I'm like, what's this nonsense? And I turned the corner and there's just 2 lines of people on either side of the bridge. And there's so many little children with who I assume are their parents holding very similar vulgar signs. And it broke my heart, man.

Yeah.

It broke my heart. Because what are they teaching those kids? That language is appropriate to talk about other people, to talk about anyone really. I don't care who it is. Teaching their children that that's an appropriate thing to say about somebody, to somebody that you disagree with.

And especially who's not there to defend themselves. You should never say it, But it's pretty cowardly to do it whenever there's not that person in front of you anyway.

It's also cowardly as an adult to hand that sign to a child and then stand behind them on the side of a freeway where you know that that's going to rile some people up. And so you are intentionally putting a child in harm's way. And to all of them, I don't care about your political views, but shame on you. And your lack of caring for your own children, I mean, it's just completely irresponsible and thoughtless and what brainwashed monsters.

Yeah.

I mean, really.

Terrible.

I can't imagine what their home life is like because if they'll allow a child to stand there with a sign like that, I guarantee you those children are being spoken to like that in their own homes. And a child should never be spoken to like that.

Correct.

And what made me mad, and this is the thing that makes my wife mad all the time, is most of those people out there, we were down the road spending some time with some boys that need some love and some care and some direction in their life. And I guarantee you, most, if not hardly any of those people that were standing out there protesting have ever gone to try and help another human being like that. They spend all of their time and energy yelling and hating a different political philosophy.

Right.

And I understand that what happened was horrible.

Sure.

And terrible.

Sure.

I don't know that anybody— it's like there's a line from a comedy where this person is standing out in the street protesting, and yelling about this thing. And this guy just kind of stops and says, you don't need to yell at us. No one's on the other side of this issue. I think a reasonable person genuinely understands that what happened was a terrible, awful thing and shouldn't have happened. Sure.

Agreed. Yep.

I think any reasonable person would agree with that.

There's never a scenario where someone being killed is okay. Is okay. No, it's just not.

So, and I also don't think that, that like we can like trace all this back to like one person.

No. So it's, well, I mean, legitimately speaking, you own a business, you have employees, right? You tell the employees what their expectations are. What control do you have over that? I mean, other than if you don't do that, I'll fire you. I will fire you.

Right.

But if they want to go off and poison someone with the chemicals that you send them off with, they could.

They could. And I would be held responsible for that.

Sure. Absolutely. But the reality of it is—

I personally wouldn't have caused it. I personally wouldn't have done the thing. But at the end of the day, I'm going to take responsibility for it because it is my business. It is my employee. Now I'm probably going to fire them. I'm probably not going to have them performing those duties anymore. But ultimately, I'm going to take responsibility for it.

Yeah. I just think that the real point that I'm trying to make here is that one person acting doesn't necessarily reflect the belief system or the instructions or the intentions of the person who is in charge of them. So, and we're all old enough to understand that, that, that's not a foreign concept to anybody, but we apply it all the time.

Sure.

They're like, that person acted, therefore there's no way this other person doesn't condone it. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

And so it's, it, I, I understand both sides of the coin.

Yeah.

Um, seeing kids holding signs is not the side. It's not on either side.

Intuitively vulgar signs.

It's nowhere on the coin.

No. It irritated me to no end. My wife's response to that was like, I want to stop and ask if I can just take all the kids to McDonald's and let them eat until they're done with this nonsense because none of them are safe.

Yeah. Right?

I just wanted to throat punch all of them.

Sure.

It just infuriated me. Obviously, I didn't do it, But to my wife's point, if most of those people would take that same energy and apply it to people in need, the world would actually be a better place.

It would be.

If they would go and find a place to serve and actually give of themselves rather than wasting ink on paper, saying vulgar things and then handing them to children, actually go serve food to somebody. Go help clothe somebody. Just go help sit down and listen to somebody who's not having it go as well for them in life as you. Maybe help them, hand them some encouraging words. Do something like that. But stop wasting your time standing on a bridge changing nothing.

Right.

Other than teaching your children horrible values.

Yeah. No. Yeah. You're accomplishing something, is not the thing that you think you're accomplishing.

No, no.

For sure.

So it's the— yeah. So, and I hate that it divides people too. It's a stupid thing to be divided over. Like when I think we can all agree it's just horrible.

It is. So there's no division there.

Yeah. And I can tell you like just half a mile down the road, there's a group of boys that could definitely use some encouragement.

Yeah.

Some direction in life.

Um, but unfortunately, I don't want those people being the influence.

That's fair.

So there's that.

That's fair. Um, so anyway, garage door opener.

Well, let me tell you, okay, completely switching gears. Let me tell you where this started. So, um, my, my garage door went out. Uh, it was—

The opener or the door?

The, the, the opener.

Okay. Sometimes there's a domino.

No, there is. So the opener failed. And what happened when it failed is my immediate response was, well, shoot, my garage door's not opening. Something's messed up. Like, I don't know, maybe a fuse blew. Maybe, you know, I'm trying to just run down the scenario. Well, it turns out that there's a very specific a gear inside of that, that it's plastic and over time it wears out. You can replace it and it's only about $20 for the part, but the amount of time, effort, and energy it's gonna take to actually take that—

Disassemble.

Yeah. And actually replace it.

Yeah.

And it may not work the way you want it to after that because if you disassemble it the way I understood you were gonna have to disassemble it, The ability to put it back right the way it should go.

Not easy.

Not easy, right? So I started just trying to figure out what my alternatives were. And I'll tell you this, it is not on my, you know, bingo card to replace a garage door opener because there's a lot of work that goes into that. There, if it's not like lined up correctly and the, the, the chain isn't the right length or belt or whatever it is that you're using. And, you know, the door has to be at the right height. Like everything is, it's kind of a, a math problem.

Right.

You know? And so I, I got to think, man, I just don't, I don't wanna screw this up, frankly. Like I don't wanna spend money on something, just absolutely be frustrated at myself with the amount of time I spent trying to get it done and then still have to call someone.

Right.

So, so I did the responsible thing. I called Overhead Door Company and I said, hey, how much is this gonna cost? And they were like, well, um, they gave, they, they threw out a number and it was like 3 times the amount of what just buying one would be. And so I, I asked them a question because again, we tell you to do this all the time, just ask questions. I was like, all right, like, could I do this myself? And the guy goes, well, yeah, it's just gonna take some time.

Yeah.

And I was like, oh, okay. What's better about yours, your garage door opener than others? They're like, well, we do it for you. I'm like, well, that's a pretty good reason.

Pretty darn good.

Pretty good reason, but that's 3 times the amount of what I'm gonna spend on another one. I don't really wanna do that. So I got to thinking, and that's where things got off the rails for a minute. I got to thinking, there's this little thing out there called ChatGPT. And so my wife makes fun of me all the time. I use chat for so many things.

Sure.

And I literally went to ChatGPT and said, here's the issue. What are my best options for replacement? And I, I told him, so I had a craft— it was a Craftsman brand.

Mm-hmm.

I said, you know, should I buy another Craftsman? Should I, you know, that way I don't have to, you know, replace certain things. What can I do? And, uh, it was very interesting because I don't know anything. I've never— have you ever changed a garage door?

It's been a minute.

Before, uh, opener?

I mean, like, and when I say like a minute, probably more than 20 years ago. Yeah.

Okay. So I, I knew nothing. I've never done it. And all I knew is it's fairly involved. So what chat revealed to me that I didn't know is that there are multiple brands out there that use the very same mechanisms and brackets for their installation process.

Mm-hmm.

So what it said was, you can go with these 3 different brands. And all you have to do is replace the actual motor and the primary arm. Every other bracket, the tension rod, the, the rail system, everything else, completely the same.

All right.

Even the bracket that the motor goes on, you don't have to replace it. Everything just is Unscrew the other one, take it down, bolt the other one up.

And I was like, that's a handy piece of information. Unbelievable.

All of a sudden I'm feeling a little bit like, oh, well that I can probably do.

Yeah.

You know? And so I started, so I was like, all right, well, which one's the best one? What are my— and it was like, well, now you've got these different options. And so I, I did go with the higher-end one.

Okay.

Um, mainly because I'm doing it myself. I'm saving all this money, right?

A nice one.

This is guy math, right?

Yeah, yeah.

I'm, I'm figuring this out. So the Chamberlain, uh, the one that I got, I, I'll just tell you, it's a—

the—

if anybody wants to go look it up, it's the B as in boy, 6753, T as in Tom. So 6753. It's a smart garage door opener, which means a couple things. Number one, there's an app. So, uh, I can open and close my door from anywhere, from my phone.

Yeah.

Anywhere. All right. Um, the other thing that it does is that it has a camera on it. Like, camera? What is that for?

Well, Amazon, right?

It's for Amazon.

Yeah.

Or any delivery, but primarily Amazon. You can give them access and they can open up your garage door, put something in, and close it. In order to do that, your system has to have a, a camera on it.

Yeah. I, I, so I, I didn't realize this just because, because we live on property. Mm-hmm. And they just come up the drive, drop the packages off, try and avoid the dogs, and then hightail it outta here.

Right.

I didn't realize, like, until recently, I didn't realize, like, most garage door openers now come with a camera.

They do.

Because Amazon's requiring it.

They are.

Um, so that they have, like, a check system.

Video proof. Yeah. So that you're not stealing stuff. Yeah. And so I—

But also, like, you don't want, like, to give the drivers access to your garage. Correct. And then see him walk into your home.

Correct. So, no, that's, it's a, it's a, it's, it is a check and balance type of thing.

Yeah.

Um, and, and that's a service that you, you actually have to, you have to pay for that service. So, but I mean, I don't just mean from Amazon.

Like, sort of like Ring doorbell?

It is. Like, you, you, you're just paying a subscription, and you can pay monthly, yearly, whatever. And it's really not that, that much.

It's—

I think it's like $20 a month or something like that. Uh, and, and if, if you live in a place where you're in a neighborhood and you really don't want your packages just left out or whatever, it's, it's a pretty good option.

Pretty good little feature.

Pretty good little feature. Now, I will tell you, we don't use it. And part of the reason we don't use it is because we do have 2 big dogs that roam the property and have free rein of the property. And it, it freaks drivers out. And so we have a designated place for them to, to leave stuff and it's secure and all that kind of stuff. But, uh, if we wanted that feature, it, it would be great. The other thing is if I just use the, the feature, I could, you know, if my garage door was ever up, I, I could see it's just an extra camera.

Yeah.

It, it's got a lot of options. But the other thing that it's got, it's got a backup battery, which is pretty awesome. Not all, not all garage door openers do.

Mhmm.

But this way, if your power goes out, you can still lift your garage door opener without—

Yeah.

Disengaging the, the belt. You know what I mean?

Which, by the way, I think we, on that note, I think we need to have a moment of silence.

Okay.

In memory of the, forlorn, uh, Ryobi garage door opener that had the battery socket attachment. So like if the part— you could stick a Ryobi battery in there and run your garage.

It did so many things.

It was such a cool— I don't know why they discontinued it.

I don't either. But anyway, it, it had, had more options than that even. Like it did.

It had attachments.

It did.

Um, it was pretty incredible. I miss it.

Yeah, I do too.

So, um, carry on.

So it is super quiet. I was actually like wondering like how different this would be. Uh, it's unbelievable how quiet it is in comparison to the old one we had. The other thing is, um, you know, most garage doors have openers have like a light.

Yeah.

And most of them face the garage door.

The opening.

The opening. And so there's, there's one light up there. and it kind of lights up your, your garage. Um, we've got lights in our garage, but I was like, this, this thing is crazy. Uh, it actually has a light bar in the front and the back and lights up the entire garage. It's got 2,000 lumens.

Oh my gosh.

On this thing, and it is super bright. So if you're looking, it's, it's kind of dual function that if you're looking for a garage door opener, that also provides a lot of light, this one will do it.

So, uh, 2,000 lumens is a lot. I mean, like, it's a lot. I mean, back in the day, that was a semi-powerful projector.

Yeah, right, exactly. No, it, it, it does a pretty incredible job of lighting up the entire place. But by the way, um, the wall mount for the, the garage door opener Same wiring, same, like, I didn't even have to drill a new hole. Like, everything just was plug and play.

Nice.

Like, chat was great for this.

I'm actually surprised that we still have wired garage door openers.

Yeah.

I mean, like, it seems—

Sure.

It seems more convenient and easier for, like, installation, just, like, battery.

Yeah, I think part of the issue, is that those go out. And when they do, I think that's the issue.

Now, like, you have your phone.

Yeah, no, you're right. I mean, you're not wrong.

I just, I get the convenience of never having to change the batteries out. It's the same thing with like a Ring doorbell. I mean, which honestly, that I may not be the best case for that because like I quit using my Ring doorbell because I was tired of recharging it. But that's different.

Of course it is.

Very different. Well, I mean, taking it off and plugging it in and taking it back out and screwing it back in. Like, I can just pop it off the wall and put batteries in it. I'll do that all day long.

Yeah.

But like, sorry.

Yeah.

Poor design on Ring's part.

Yeah, it's true. They, they did get— well, they have wired ones.

Oh, all of them are.

Yeah.

Well, they're both—

It depends. Yeah, you can do either one.

Well, so all of them have an internal battery. But like, you, you don't need it to be wired in order for it to operate. You just have to be able to recharge it, right? In order to recharge it though, you got to unscrew it and take it out, and it's just a pain in the butt.

That's a pain. Yeah. So, um, so, so yeah, I— there's, there's other things like it. You— it's even got a microphone on it. So like, if someone is in your garage and you've got that feature, like If Amazon shows up, kind of like a Ring, you can talk to it.

Oh, so it's got to have a speaker on it as well.

It does. So, um, which is kind of cool. Um, I don't— again, I don't use it, but it works that way. So anyway, there's, there's a lot of cool things that you can do with it.

So sorry, I'm just— so you have to have the subscription in order to use those features? You can't just like connect it to Wi-Fi and use it that way?

No, but you can use like if you're trying to open or close it or whatever, You can use it for that reason. But if you wanna, like, if you want it to display the camera, that's part of the subscription in the app. Yeah. It, it just is what it is. And there may be, there may be brands out there that don't do it that way.

I mean, that's just what this is. That doesn't work for you. Just stick a webcam in your garage.

I mean, that's true.

That's free.

Do what you want. Do what you want as far as that goes. Um, but you know, with the, what, what's cool is since it's got, since it is a smart device, you can set it up with, uh, like, like IFTTT.

Mm-hmm.

And which, if you don't know what that is, it's an automation system to where if this, then that.

Yeah.

Um, you can set it up to where like if your garage door opens, turn on a light or whatever. Like there's, there's things you could do as far as that goes. So anyway, long story short, um, I did it on my own by myself. And probably the coolest thing about the entire thing was the installation process. Because the instructions were on an app that I had to download, which sounds like, like I will tell you, whenever I found out the, the installation instructions were on an app, I was kind of mad.

Yeah.

I was like, I gotta download this app in order to do this. And then I downloaded the app and I started using it. Unbelievable.

Like, so it was It's not built into the same app.

It's not, it's separate.

It's a whole separate app.

But this, but that separate app is built for installs.

Okay.

And it stores like the installation manuals and all that kind of stuff.

So it— Oh, that's okay. That's kind of cool.

It has, it has some—

So it's not just for the garage door opener. You can get multiple.

Multiple.

I gotcha. Yeah.

So it's, it's got some utility to it. It's, it's got some function, but What I'll tell you was so cool, not only did it have like video of like, this is what you do, like this is how you do this thing, it, it had an interactive 3D model.

Oh.

Here's what I mean by that. So imagine you've got a, uh, an image, a 3D image of the control arm, for example. In a book, like if in the installation book, you're gonna see a 2D version of this, right? Even if it showed it to you in 3D, you have one angle.

Yeah, with one, one perspective.

One perspective.

Yeah.

With this app, with simple hand gestures of like 2 fingers here, whatever, you could turn that thing all the way around and see the other side of it. And it had like, like color-coded, like if you were about to like put a screw in, it would be like yellow and it would show you exactly which one it was, exactly where it went. And if you couldn't figure out exactly where it needed to go, you could like just turn it in the app and go, oh, well, that's supposed to be like that.

Mm-hmm.

And it was incredibly detailed. You could zoom in, zoom out. Like, I was blown away. I was floored. at how cool it was to install this thing. Uh, and I actually had fun doing it.

They need to do that for ceiling fans.

Well, I— that— they might.

They should.

But they probably—

Ceiling fans are stupid.

They are stupid. They took— they— it takes way longer to install a ceiling fan than you think it should.

Every time.

Every time. And they're all different.

That's the problem.

They— I completely agree. I mean, Anyway, so all I'm saying, ChatGPT was my friend and, uh, I was happy with this one. Uh, it wasn't cheap. Right now on Amazon is $400. It's $398. Oh, that's not bad. Um, but you install it yourself.

Yeah.

It was, it was 3 times that amount for them to come do it. That's crazy. For me, like $1,200.

I mean, like, I, I understand.

Sure.

I do.

Sure.

I mean, they, they don't know what they're walking into, right?

No, they don't.

They don't. I get it.

The fact that I didn't have to like replace brackets, replace mounting stuff, replace, you know, the door.

Yeah, because like when they're giving you that number, I mean, they could be walking into my garage where there's never been a garage door opener. Yeah. And it's not going to be easy.

That's right.

You're gonna have to install the entire thing.

Entire thing.

Which, that's gonna be, I mean, even, even for guys that know what they're doing, it's gonna be a few hours.

It is.

So yeah, I understand, I understand the price.

So anyway, it was awesome. I'll link it in the show notes, um, the, the Amazon option for you. And, uh, yeah, do it. Just try it. You can do it.

You, you'd like it. You'll like it.

That's right.

You're, you're a smart, smart person.

That's right. Well, listen, I think that's going to do it for today's episode. Thank you guys for tuning in. We appreciate you very much. If you have not already, What are you doing? Please, please, please.

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