Questions we get asked every day

Almost always a broken torsion spring. That bang is the spring letting go, and it is loud enough that people think something hit the door.

The spring — not the opener — carries the weight of the door. Once it snaps, the opener is trying to lift a couple of hundred pounds on its own and it can’t. Don’t keep pressing the button, and don’t try to force the door up by hand. We keep springs on the truck, so most of these are fixed in one visit — that’s broken spring repair.

No. Estimates are free and there’s no charge for coming out.

We’ll tell you what’s wrong and what it costs before any work starts, and you decide from there. No fee for the trip, no fee for the diagnosis.

Please don’t. A torsion spring holds an enormous amount of stored energy, and it is released through winding bars in a specific order. Get that wrong and the bar becomes a projectile, or the door drops.

This is the one job on a garage door where the gap between “handy” and “qualified” sends people to the emergency room. Sensors and remotes, have at it. Springs, call someone.

Almost always both. On a two-spring door the pair is the same age, wound the same number of cycles and fitted on the same day — so when one lets go, the other is usually months behind it.

Replacing only the broken one also leaves the door pulling unevenly, and that wears the cables, the drums and the opener. A second call-out in three months is the expensive way to save money today. Single-spring doors are normal too, by the way — plenty of one-car doors only ever had one. Either way it’s the same job: broken spring repair.

Usually not. Off-track doors are normally a bent track, a worn roller, or a cable that slipped off the drum — and the panels themselves are generally fine.

What turns a repair into a replacement is forcing it. Every press of the button drags the door further out of line and starts bending panels that were fine a minute ago. Stop, and call while it’s still just the hardware. Off-track repair is a routine job right up until the panels start bending.

No. Stop using it.

When a cable jumps off the drum or snaps, one side of the door is carrying the weight and the other side isn’t — that’s why it sits crooked. Every press of the button after that drags it further out of line, and a door that heavy hanging on one cable is not something to stand under.

Don’t try to lever the cable back onto the drum by hand either; it’s under tension even with the door down. Leave it where it is, park on the drive if the car is shut in, and call. This is routine work for us — off-track repair and cable and drum repair are two of the jobs the trucks are stocked for.

There’s a red cord hanging from the trolley on the opener rail. Pulling it disconnects the door from the opener so the door can be lifted by hand.

Two things to know first. Pull it with the door fully closed — releasing it while the door is part way up, with a broken spring, lets the door drop. And if the spring is broken the door weighs what it actually weighs, a couple of hundred pounds, so it may not lift at all. Don’t fight it, and don’t let anyone stand underneath it.

Say “my car is shut in” when you call. That moves you up the list.

That’s the safety sensors — the two small eyes a few inches off the floor at either side of the opening. They have to see each other or the opener refuses to close the door. A blinking light is it telling you so.

Try this first, it’s free: move anything sitting in front of them, wipe both lenses with a dry cloth, and check that both little lights are steady rather than flickering. A bag or a bike wheel in the way fixes it about half the time.

If one lens stays dark or flickers, the bracket has usually been knocked out of alignment, or a staple has pinched the wire. That part we’ll sort out.

Both. We repair and replace openers — Chamberlain, LiftMaster, Genie and the rest — along with remotes, keypads, sensors and worn-out drive units.

Worth knowing before you buy a new one: a lot of “the opener is dead” calls turn out to be a sensor alignment or a failed capacitor, not the unit. We’ll tell you which one it is — that’s all part of opener repair and installation.

Repair is most of what we do. Springs, cables, drums, rollers, doors off their track, openers, sensors, remotes — that’s the daily work, and the trucks carry the parts for it.

We fit new doors as well, when a door is genuinely past fixing or you just want a different one. But if you found us filed under “garage door supplier” somewhere and assumed we only sell, don’t let that stop you calling about a broken spring at 7am. Start at garage door repair, or install and replacement if it really is time for a new door.

Most of the time, same day. The trucks carry the common parts — springs, rollers, cables, drums, sensors — so the usual failures get fixed on the first visit rather than after a parts order.

If your car is shut in, or the door is stuck open and you can’t leave the house like that, say so when you call and we’ll move you up the list.

Yes — around the clock, including weekends and holidays.

Garage doors fail at inconvenient times, and a door stuck open is a house left open. If that happens at 2am, call then rather than waiting until morning.

It depends on which part failed and what size door you have, so anyone quoting you a firm number down the phone before seeing it is guessing.

What we can promise is the process: we look at it for free, tell you the price before we start, and you decide. No charge for the visit if you’d rather not go ahead.

Five years on parts. Ninety days on labour.

So if a part we installed fails inside five years, the replacement part is covered. The ninety days covers the workmanship — if something isn’t right with how it was fitted, we come back and put it right.

Both. We take commercial work as well as residential.

Call and tell us what the door is and where it is — commercial doors vary far more than residential ones, so it’s worth two minutes on the phone before anyone drives out. More on commercial garage doors.

Yes, and it’s the most under-rated reason doors fail around here. Gulf air is wet enough, year round, that springs, cables and the bottom brackets rust — and a rusted cable doesn’t snap all at once. It frays strand by strand until one ordinary morning it lets go.

Water adds its own list. It sits in the bottom panel and in the rollers, wood doors swell and stop sealing, steel doors rust from the bottom edge up, and the safety sensors sit about six inches off the floor, so they’re usually the first thing a flood takes out. If water reached your door, have the springs, cables and bottom brackets checked before you trust it again.

What actually helps: look at the cables now and then. An orange streak or a frayed strand is the only warning you get, and catching it is the difference between cable and drum repair and a door on the floor.

We’re based in Katy, and that’s where most of the work is — Cinco Ranch, Seven Meadows, Firethorne, Elyson and the rest of 77494 and 77450.

From there we cover Fulshear, Cypress, Richmond, Sugar Land and Magnolia, a good stretch of west Houston and the surrounding Harris County area. The full list is on areas we serve, and Katy has a page of its own: garage door repair in Katy, TX.

Not sure whether you’re in range? Call and we’ll tell you straight rather than sending someone an hour late.

If you’re in 77494, 77450, 77449 or 77493, yes — that’s Katy, and it’s home ground. We’re out there most days.

Past those we still cover a good stretch of west Houston and Harris County. The honest answer is to call and give us your cross streets: we’d rather tell you no in ten seconds than book you and turn up an hour late.