Last week I had a company come check out the gate motor because it had started to make some strange noises. The sound was a little concerning as it can only be the bearings grinding against metal. Every time you open or close the gate which is often you are constantly reminded this needs fixing and sooner than later. The gate motor was last serviced a couple of years ago and were told that this particular motor is in demand due to the quality. It has to be a good 15 years old so I need to make sure it lasts another 15 years knowing the modern motors are not nearly as good and will not be cheap either. This is a double swing arm motor which are the most expensive ones and sit in the ground.
I was not expecting the company to remove the entire motor and gate arm, but I guess to do the job properly they need to take it back to the workshop. In the meantime they welded on a piece of metal that can be used with a padlock to secure the gate.
This morning they were back installing the repaired motor and it looks like it is brand new having been taken completely apart. They showed me the photos of the stripped motor explaining in detail what they had done. The motor was cleaned and the bearings were replaced and regreased so this will definitely last another 10 years now which is the good news.
The total cost was R2850 ($170) which is not nearly as bad as a replacement motor for a double swing arm motor which is R20K ($1.3K). I kind of expected this to be the ball park range for the repair as it was a callout and then a refit plus the repair itself. I cannot complain as I know this would have cost much more if this was the UK or the US.
Service related prices have risen quite steeply in South Africa over the last few years yet they are still fairly reasonable when you compare. Just last week my cap on my one tooth fell off and the dentist charged me R400 to refit that. I don't think you would even get a dental appointment for $25 let alone doing any work so certain things are very cheap.
Owning a property costs money with general maintenance happening all the time and you just never know what needs attention next. Last week we had the plumber come do 4 little jobs and now this week the gate. Next week hopefully there will not be anything else so fingers crossed we have a few months or longer before the next episode.
The solar still needs finishing off which will be much more costly than these odd jobs and will wait for the court case to finally finish off as we are at the judgement time now with the case having finished last Thursday. We won the first case with costs and we have won the appeal that they lodged and now the second part we sued them for damages so this is a stressful time waiting to hear the ruling which should be in our favor. Top lawyers are very expensive and you need to pay top dollars for the good ones and this should finally be over. I can only talk about this once this is done and has literally been like a film what has taken place without any exaggeration that is how bad it has been.
