New garage doors, measured and fitted

What happens

What is actually going on

An attached garage is part of the heated envelope of the house. If there is a bedroom or a room over it, insulation and opener noise stop being upgrades and become the main decision. Insulated doors are rated by R-value: an uninsulated steel door is effectively R-0, polystyrene-filled doors typically land around R-6 to R-9, and polyurethane-injected doors run higher again because the foam bonds to both skins and stiffens the whole section.

A detached garage off an alley is a different problem. It is unheated, so insulation matters far less, but exposure matters more — the door takes weather on both faces, the opening is often out of square after decades of the structure settling, and the header may need attention before a new door is worth hanging on it.

Door weight also drives everything downstream. A heavier insulated door needs springs sized for it and, past a point, a stronger opener. A quote that does not account for that is a quote that will change later.

Signs

What you would notice

• Sections are creased, rusted through, or delaminating
• Repeated repairs on a door already past its useful life
• No insulation on a garage below living space
• The door no longer seals against weather or pests
• You want a quieter door because of a room above the garage

What we do

What the visit involves

1. Measure the opening, headroom, backroom and side clearance on site. Not from a photo.
2. Check the header, jambs and floor for square and condition before specifying anything.
3. Quote the door, the correctly sized springs, and the opener together, so the number does not move later.
4. Remove and dispose of the old door.
5. Install, balance, set the opener, and test the safety reverse.

What it costs

Priced before the work starts

You get the number before we begin, not after. What moves it is the size of the door, the parts it needs, and whether anything else came apart when the first thing failed.

Questions

What people ask

Do I need an insulated door?

If the garage is attached, and particularly if there is living space above or beside it, insulation is worth it for both temperature and noise. On a detached, unheated alley garage the case is much weaker and the money is usually better spent on the door's construction and weather sealing.

Can I keep my existing opener?

Often, if it is sound and the new door is not significantly heavier. A heavier insulated door may need a stronger opener, and it will definitely need springs rated for the new weight. We check this before quoting rather than after.

How long does an installation take?

A standard single-door replacement is normally a same-day job. Openings that are out of square, or that need header work first, take longer, and you will hear that at the quote rather than on the day.

What about a detached garage with no power?

Common on older city lots. The door itself is unaffected — the question is whether you want an opener, which then becomes an electrical job to run a circuit to the garage. We will tell you what is involved.

Where we work

Service area

Related

Other things that fail

• Garage door opener repair and installation When the opener runs but the door stays put, the opener is usually not the part that failed.
• Garage door repair, symptom by symptom Almost everything that stops a garage door is one of six parts. You do not need to know which one.
• Broken torsion spring replacement A snapped spring is the single most common reason a garage door stops working, and the one repair nobody should attempt themselves.