this post was submitted on 11 May 2026
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me_irl
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Ain't that the truth. In the past 2 months my garage door spring, water heater, and dryer unit all decided to take a shit. Drained my savings pretty quick.
Same. It's a good thing I pay hundreds less per month on a mortgage instead of the going rent rate, which enables me to have savings in the first place. Not being forced to move every year and incur the equivalent costs of an appliance or two also helps.
For me the biggest reason to buy is simply quality of life. On paper, sure, renting comes with ease of mind. You don't have to do maintenance and the landlord takes care of everything. However, the responsible landlord is the personal finance analog of the physicist's spherical cow. Landlords are in the business to make a buck. They never do any maintenance unless absolutely forced to do so by either the law or market conditions. If the city isn't going to condemn the property, and as long as they can keep it rented, they don't give a damn. However, when something at the landlord's house needs fixing, it's undoubtedly fixed quickly and properly.
I like owning a house because it ensures that I can actually have a pleasant place to live. Landlords have no incentive so keep their properties actually livable rather than just inhabitatable.
Dryer is often tenant owned anyway. Spring is cheap if you're brave. Water heater you can get for the difference in this posts's rent and mortgage.
Doesn't muddy the waters a bit.
What a beautiful epitaph
I don't recommend everyone do it but it's not rocket science. Follow proceedure and respect the danger. Most of you operate multi tonne motor vehicles, you can do it.
Isn't it the second most common method of losing fingers, right after table saws?
Sure, but I don't stand on a ladder, stick a screwdriver into the flywheel, and then tell my friend to fire it up.
I understand that is exaggerated and oversimplified, but having an old garage door spring miss my face by inches because it failed as I walked below it was a terrifying experience. In a car, the car is a crumple zone. In a garage door spring, your skull is the crumple zone (assuming that you're interacting with it in such a way. I also tend to not put my face in front of cars that are prepared to accelerate.)
Oh yes. Big springs are dangerous, respect them or get sprung.
My poor poor anaconda...
When I was younger we had one of the older-style "2 big springs" doors and needed to replace the springs. The new ones were a bit shorter, so we had to close the doors a little harder. No problem.
About 20 minutes later there was a sound like an explosion in the garage. One of the new springs broke where the hook went into the door from the strain of being stretched so tight, and it shot across the room and was sticking out of the man-door on the other side of the garage.
Don't fuck with garage springs.
I had my grandparents' house inspected before buying it, and the inspector said that a couple of the springs (same type) were not installed correctly; that the extra cable coming from the door to the track was supposed to be routed through the spring to hold it in place in case there was a failure. The garage doors were already concerning me, so I hired a garage door company to take a look, and update the springs.
The technician told me that an inspector pointing that out is really strange, because that's an incredibly niche detail for an inspector to know. The tech looks at the spring, checks out the garage door, etc. All the while, I'm standing under the track. The tech was about to open the garage door, and said, "hey, take a few steps back. No reason to risk standing under that, in case it fails." I took three steps back, and then there was a loud bang, and the spring suddenly whipped across in front of me, bounced back once, and then lazily swung back and forth in front of me.
I still sometimes panic walking under my garage door tracks.
That's not at all a niche detail. An inspector who fails to call that out is completely incompetent.
I'm glad to know that! I've only inspected and purchased my grandparents' home, and I hope to live here the rest of my life, so I don't really know what to expect from inspectors. I only know what I've been told.
I know exactly how to replace a garage spring, I simply refuse to do it.
We spent $45k on repairs in two years. Wiped us out. But my only debt is still my one mortgage. The house is only worth about $250k. But I'm good on my roof, foundation, water heater and HVAC for quite a few more years.
the devil is in the details nobody talks about.
owning a home can bankrupt you, given all the legal, tax, and liabilities issues involved.
renting doesn't come with those issues, generally.
Rent pays for all those things generally. Landlords just have the benefit of having money in the bank (typically due to assistance from their parents). The entire purpose of renting use to make a profit, if rent doesn't cover maintenance and taxes then rent will increase until it surpasses maintenance and taxes.