Six steps, and you can stop it at any of them
Nothing on this list is unusual. It is written down because knowing the order makes it obvious when somebody is doing it out of order — quoting a part before touching the door, for instance.
Car trapped inside, or a door that will not close at night, moves up the day. Say so when you call.
The phone call
Three questions: what is it doing, when did it start, and is there a car inside. Then a description of the door if you can give one — single or double, one spring above the opening or two, springs above the door or long ones along the ceiling. You get a figure to attend before you hang up, and if we think it is likely to be a spring we will say the range for that too, with the reason it is a range.
We will not quote a spring firmly on the phone. The price depends on the wire size, the inside diameter and the length of what is actually up there, and anyone who gives you a hard number without knowing those three things is either guessing or planning to change it in your driveway.
The first ten minutes, before any tools come out
The opener gets disconnected at the trolley and the door is lifted by hand. It should feel like eight or ten pounds and it should hold at waist height. That single test separates a door problem from an opener problem, and it is free whether or not you go ahead with anything.
Then: the spring, looked at for a gap and for the paint line that shows whether it has been re-wound; both cables, followed from the drum to the bottom bracket, checking for a strand that has started to fray; the drums, checked that both are wrapped to the same mark; and the tracks, sighted down from the floor for a bend or a bolt that has pulled out of the jamb.
What it is, what it costs, what happens if you leave it
Three sentences, said standing in your garage before anything is undone. The third one matters: some faults are safe to live with for a few months and some are not, and you are entitled to know which this is. A frayed cable is a soon; a noisy roller is a whenever; a door that will not reverse on the board is a today.
If the price changes mid-job because something underneath was worse than it looked, you hear it before it changes, not on the ticket at the end.
The work
Bradenton get wound with bars, off the truck, with the door clamped in the track and the opener unplugged. Cables get set to a mark on both drums so the door comes up level rather than crabbing across the opening. Track goes back plumb and shimmed off the jamb rather than pulled tight to it, because a jamb that has moved will bend the track again.
Old parts stay on the floor until you have seen them. If a spring came off your door we will show you the break and the paint line on it.
The safety reverse test, with you watching
A 1½-inch board flat on the floor under the middle of the opening. The door closes onto it and must reverse on contact. Then the photo-eye beam gets broken by hand as the door travels down, and it must reverse for that too. Both tests get done in front of you, and we would rather you did the last one yourself so you know exactly how it should look.
If the door fails either test and we cannot make it pass, we will tell you the opener should not be used until it does. We will not make it pass by increasing the force.
The ticket
The door, the spring specification including its cycle rating, every line of work with its own price, the tests and their result, and anything you asked for that we did not do and why. That last part is the point of the whole document. A ticket that only lists what you were charged for is a receipt; a ticket that also lists what you were not charged for is a record.
Keep it with the house. When you sell, the next owner has a written history of what is above their opening.
A door that will not close is a security problem, not just an inconvenience. If we cannot get to you the same day we will tell you how to secure the opening safely — which does not involve disabling the safety eyes.
If a part we fitted fails, call and we come back. If the diagnosis was wrong, we do not charge you twice to correct our own reading of it. That is written into the warranty page rather than left as a nice sentence here.
At the end, once the door has been tested in front of you. No deposit on a repair. A new door is ordered against a written quote with a deposit, and the quote says exactly what the deposit covers.
The door gets disconnected before anything gets quoted
- releasedThe trolley is disconnected at the cord, so the door is off the opener.
- stays putBalanced. This is the one you want.
- runs upOver-wound.
- dropsThe spring is weak or wrongly sized.
Balance test — opener disconnected at the trolley
Pull the release cord, lift the door by hand to about waist height, and let go. A correctly balanced door stays where you put it. If it drops, the spring is weak or wrongly sized. If it runs up, it is over-wound. Two minutes, no parts, and it decides most of what happens next.
Side section — what the tech is looking at while that is happening.