Garage door questions, answered properly

Spring replacement starts at $150 per spring, cable repair at $95, opener repair at $95, opener installation at $275, off-track repair at $140, panel replacement at $250, storm damage repair at $150, a new wind-rated door installed at $950 and a hurricane-rated door installed at $1,800. Those are starting prices for a standard single door in normal condition.

Roughly $270 to $600 installed for a standard door in this market: $150 to $350 for the first spring and $120 to $250 to do the second at the same visit. Quotes well above that for two standard springs are worth a second opinion. High-cycle springs and 16 foot doubles legitimately cost more, and whoever is quoting should tell you which applies.

Four things move a job above the starting price: door size, door type and model, the condition of the parts around the failure, and access or timing. In Florida the third one is usually corrosion: a rusted cable often comes with a rusted drum and bottom bracket. We tell you which of those applies before we start, not after.

Not as a separate bait fee. We quote the job before dispatch based on what you describe. Genuine emergency or after-hours dispatch carries a $150 to $300 call-out premium, stated before we send anyone.

From $1,800 installed for a single impact-rated steel door, running to $6,500 for larger, insulated or HVHZ doors, with the permit included. Impact-rated full view glass runs to $8,000 and above. Storm damage repair on an existing door starts at $150, and a retrofit bracing kit with Florida Product Approval is an option outside Miami-Dade and Broward.

Usually, seven days a week, Monday to Friday 7:00 to 20:00, Saturday 8:00 to 18:00 and Sunday 9:00 to 17:00. You get a real arrival window before we dispatch rather than a vague promise, and if it slips we tell you.

Do not run the opener. If a spring has snapped the door is dead weight and forcing it can bend panels or drop the door. Most doors have a manual release cord, and with a second person the door can usually be lifted and propped. Then stop using it and call us.

Yes, and we treat it as one. An open garage on an attached house is a security problem, not an inconvenience. Same-day emergency service is available with the $150 to $300 call-out premium stated up front.

Usually not a repair at all. Pull the red manual release cord and lift the door by hand; a balanced door lifts easily. If it will not lift or the door is bent or off its track, that is storm damage and we assess it from $150. An opener with battery backup, $60 to $150 extra at installation, avoids the problem next time.

No. The springs carry the weight, not the opener. Running the opener on a broken spring strains the motor, bends panels and can drop the door. Leave it alone until it is fixed.

A torsion spring under tension stores enough energy to break bones, and it releases that energy instantly if it is not unwound under control with winding bars. Emergency rooms see the results of this every year. It is the one job on a garage door that genuinely should not be attempted.

Usually the photo eye safety sensors are misaligned or something is breaking the beam, or the down force is set too low. Both are quick to correct. It can also mean the door is out of balance and the opener is tripping its own safety limit.

Pull the manual release, lift the door halfway by hand, and let go. A balanced door stays put. If it drops or rises on its own, the spring is not matched to the door, and the opener has been doing work it was never meant to do.

Any replacement door does. The Florida Building Code requires the door to be rated for the design wind pressure at the site, because the garage door is the largest opening in the house and when it fails the house pressurizes and the roof is at risk. An older unrated door can stay in service, and a retrofit bracing kit with Florida Product Approval is an option in most of the state, though nothing makes a door hurricane proof.

A wind-rated door is built to resist pressure. An impact-rated door is also tested against large missile impact and is what most people mean by a hurricane door. Both carry a Florida Product Approval, an FL number, or a Miami-Dade NOA in the HVHZ. Impact-rated doors install from $1,800.

Miami-Dade and Broward counties are the High Velocity Hurricane Zone. A replacement door there needs a Miami-Dade Notice of Acceptance, which is a stricter approval than the Florida Product Approval used elsewhere, and the accepted route for an unrated door is a rated door rather than a bracing kit. If a quote in Coral Springs or Kendall does not mention the NOA, ask.

Yes. The permit is pulled by a licensed contractor and the wind rating is documented on it. It is included in our replacement quotes from $950. Replacing only the opener normally does not need a permit. A door installed without one is a problem at sale time and at claim time, which is the trap out of state crews leave behind after a storm.

It may. The wind mitigation inspection, form OIR-B1-1802, records whether openings including the garage door have rated protection, and a rated door can contribute to a premium credit under the mitigation discount rules. Ask your insurer for the credit schedule; we do not promise a dollar figure. When the My Safe Florida Home program is open it has offered grants toward opening protection, including garage doors.

Repair when the sections are sound and only wear parts have failed, which is most of the time. Replace when sections are rusted through or bent beyond a matchable panel, when the door has no wind rating and you want the mitigation credit, or when the repair cost approaches half the price of a new door. The best months to replace are March to May, before the season.

A standard torsion spring is rated for about 10,000 open and close cycles, which for most households is seven to ten years. High-cycle springs are rated for 20,000 or more. In Florida the count runs faster: the garage is the second front door, golf cart communities cycle several times a day, and salt air within a few miles of the coast corrodes the spring before it wears out.

Anything made before 1993 has no photo eye safety sensors and should be replaced on that basis alone. Past about twenty years, parts availability becomes the deciding factor. Florida garages reach 100°F and more in summer, which cooks logic boards and the plastic gears in older units, so a repair costing more than half a new unit is not worth doing. A new opener installs from $275.

If the door has two and one broke, both have the same cycle count and the survivor usually follows within months. Replacing both together adds $120 to $250 rather than doubling the cost, because most of the labor is shared. It is your call, and we will do just the one if you prefer.

The tell is a very low advertised number for the visit rather than for the work, the $29 service call being the classic. Ask for the full price of the actual repair, in writing, before anyone is dispatched. A company that will not give you that before arriving is telling you something.

Ask three things: who is pulling the permit, what the Florida Product Approval or Miami-Dade NOA number of the door is, and for the price in writing before work starts. A crew that cannot answer all three is passing through. Our storm work is quoted from the same published prices as any other week, and we document the damage for your claim.

Yes. Ask any contractor for both and expect a real answer rather than a slogan on a truck. Every job also carries one year on parts and one year on labor, written on the invoice.

Because we do not have enough real ones yet, and we are not going to write them. When customers leave genuine reviews they will appear here with their names attached. Until then, judge us on the published prices and the written estimate.

We are a service area business covering Florida in seven regions. We travel to the customer and do not receive customers at a location, so we do not publish a street address. We would rather say that than list a mailbox as a showroom.