Questions we get asked

Most repairs land between $180 and $520. A single torsion spring installed is $225 to $340, a pair is $365 to $520, an opener repair is $185 to $390, a full roller set is $170 to $250 and a tune-up is $119. Every range is on the cost page.

$39. That covers the trip and the diagnosis. If you do go ahead the same visit, the $39 comes off the repair in full.

We give you the likely range over the phone from what the door is doing, and we confirm it on site before starting. A firm number needs eyes on the door, because a spring is sized to the weight of your specific door.

No. A torsion spring stores enough energy to break bones and it releases all of it at once if a winding bar slips. It's the one job on a garage door that genuinely isn't a home repair.

If the door has two, yes. They were installed together and have done the same number of cycles, so the second usually follows within months. The pair costs less than two separate visits.

Springs are rated in cycles, not years. A standard spring is about 10,000 cycles and one open plus one close is one cycle. Four cycles a day is roughly 1,460 a year, so around seven years. A busy multi-car household gets through them faster.

In California, yes. Health and Safety Code section 19892 has required it on every residential opener installed in the state since 1 July 2019, with a $1,000 penalty per unit. Every opener we install has it.

Not automatically. The federal requirement for photo-eye sensors applies to what may be manufactured and sold rather than to a unit already in your garage. If your opener has working sensors and reverses on an obstruction, it's doing its job.

Often because the opening has moved rather than the door. Along the Mission Boulevard corridor through Fremont and Hayward the Hayward Fault creeps a few millimeters a year, and the flatland across Newark and west Fremont sits on bay mud that settles unevenly. We check the opening with a level before recommending anything.