Garage Door - Open Sesame

It's always nice to have a garage, especially for Canadians. In winter, it saves you a lot of time on scraping ice/snow out of your car. I am more than happy to spend these extra time staying in bed. In summer, I don't have to wait for the heat inside the car released before getting into the car. For both winter and summer, parking my car inside a garage also helps save energy at some certain level since I don't need to crank up the AC or heater as much as if I park outside.

I was happy that my new home had a garage, but I was not that pleased by the garage door. The garage door was in light purple and a bit rusty. The door had an obvious dent made by previous owner. It was a mechanical door so that I have to leave the car and open the door manually before entering the garage. All of these were ok, but I just want to have a better one. I would like to have windows on my garage door for aesthetic reasons with an electrical door opener.

Although garage door replacement is a rather small job, I found the price can still vary a lot. After some search on Homestars, I decided to use Open Sesame Inc. Steve, the owner of Open Sesame, is a very interesting and friendly person. He came to my home during one weekend to give a quote for door replacement. The quote included door, door opener with remote control, and of course the labour. He only asked for 1650 CAD. I found this price was very competitive, and he had very good reviews on Homestars. So, I decided to use him to replace the door.

At the day of installation, he showed up on time and started the work right away. I remembered seeing someone installing a garage door for one of my neighbours. It was quite noisy and I could hear the sound even at home, but when Steve disassembled and installed the garage door I hardly heard a thing. I am not sure why. Maybe it was simply because it is easier to replace a door than install a new one. The door was done professionally within 6 hrs. The new door did look much better and the new door opener saved me the hassle.

I am generally pleased by Steve's work, and I would like to recommend him for garage door jobs. However, it really took a while before he could serve me. Open Sesame is basically a 1-2 men company. Steve only has one assistant, and they have to do all the jobs and they do have a lot of orders. It's not hard to imagine that they need longer time to digest all the jobs. If you are not in a hurry and willing to wait up to 1.5 months, Open Sesame will be a good option for its highly competitive price and quality.