You need to buy a hamster. Spend time showing it a picture of the key so as to train the hamster to recognise it. This may take a number of years. You then need to teach the hamster to be able to track. I’m not a hamster specialist so can’t help you with this part. No doubt somebody on here will be able to help though.
The difficult part is then teaching the hamster to fly down, scoop up the key and fly back through the hole.
Good luck and you’re welcome
When you have calmed down heres an idea. Connect a wire to the track release mechanism that is up my the motor. It should have a sort of butterfly arrangment like a wishbone that disengages the chain from the motor.
Then run this wire along the top track and down to the handle / lock ( should be a mounting point ) or anywhere on the middle or bottom of the door.
If you ever have a powercut or a breaker pops and you cant get you could then drill a pilot hole in the door and pull the wire with a coathanger. The hole could be filled in at a later date and painted to blend in.
Take a picy with your phone so you can see where the realease wire runs, and print it out.
That way if you loose the remote , or there is apowercut you will still need a cordless drill ( thats in your garage or blag a neighbours )
This has cheered me right up. Moo haha!
My wife suggested a better idea - that we attach a pulley string to the door release and thread it through the ceiling into the spare room, so we can release it from inside the house.
Not going to do that though - if there's a power cut I'll just wait for the power to come back on. I have however avoided gluing the cut-out bit of floor back down, screwing it instead. This means that in a future extreme situation it should be much easier to repeat!
That means you cant go for a bike ride if there is a powercut = fail
No intnernetz, No telebox, no kettle. screw that , I am off on my bicyclette pour un bierre ou doux. Oh I cant because rob and my wife suggested a manual release mechanism *thats almost built in already* and I would rather dismantle my floor ftw .
I'm not having a release mechanism that requires me to drill a hole in the sodding door, that's ridiculous. I'd rather buy the battery backup device from Hormann.
Oh, you thought this was over? No, of course not!
Ordered new keys - the new keys didn't accept coding from the old keys. So I spent hours combing the internet to figure out how to code the new key to the opener directly. The manufacturer's instructions for the later model give you lots of instructions on how to do it, but for the old one they are absent. I cannot find the original instructions I got with the door either.
In my faffing about trying to get the code copied from the old key to the new one, I managed to overwrite the code from the new key to the old one. Which means I had no working keys, and the door was stuck open. And then my wife reminded me I need to go pick up the kids and stay for their coffee evening thing. With all my bikes on display to the world.
There's a company (ABI Garage Doors) with quite a few how-to's on their website, just not the one I needed. So I called them anyway, even though I'm not a customer - and they helped me out very generously. Great company! I can now close the door and open it, and I have two keys.
Very well written first post - amusing.
If it is an integral garage why is there not an internal door to the garage ?
Too late now but I would have taken that as the cue to arrange for an internal doorway to be cut. That was one of the first things I did when buying my place and it gets used loads.
"That was one of the first things I did when buying my place and it gets used loads."
is that not against current fire/building regs?
If it is an integral garage why is there not an internal door to the garage ?
Also building regs I'd guess.
I would have taken that as the cue to arrange for an internal doorway to be cut.
Quite expensive though. Money is tight.
You can pick up sledgehammers pretty cheap though. Just hire a couple of acrows to keep everything supported for now.
Probably cheaper than calling out the locksmith 🙂
I do a fair bit of DIY but I'm worried about cutting holes in walls. However I would like to get the hang of it cos I want to put two windows into the house.
Any builders in South Wales willing to do a day's paid work showing me how to do it?
Now worrying that Molgrips is aiming for 'fail of the year' on the back of my 'advice'. 🙂
Mobile phone endoscope on amazon for a tenner.
Brilliant.
You now have a handy escape hatch in case of a home invasion.
🙂
But you do have fire retardent material / fire break in between the garage and your room above don't you?
Cutting doorways / windows? Effing big angle grider / cut off saw thingy and simply cut it out. thats what I did. I did make sure tho nothing much was being supported by the wall first tho. =
is that not against current fire/building regs?
clearly not as I have a building regs certificate 🙂
Had a engineer survey the house and determine the support requirements for a lintel, and then it was cut.
Door has that heat expanding lining around it and a spring/chain thing that pulls the door closed, and loads of fire retarding mastic filling any gaps between the breeze blocks and the door frame.
certificate issued after inspection.
I did make sure tho nothing much was being supported by the wall first tho.
How? This would be on the ground floor of a three storey house, I'm worried about the rest of the wall.
I knew the construction of the building and were the joists were.
In your case it almost certainly will be supporting - so you knock a single brick or maybe two out above where you are cutting the door, stick a needle ( lump of timber) thru and support on acrow props - or you can get one sided supports if you want
However - remember what my profession is 😉 I don't carry insurance for building advice!