Garage door installation in London, Ontario

Installing a garage door in London, Ontario is the job on the installation page, done on a slab that spends four months under snow. The London branch fits doors from Garaga, Amarr and Stanley and openers from LiftMaster, Chamberlain and Genie. Send the contact form for a quote, or email info@protechgarage.ca.

The floor is the London problem

Environment Canada's normals for 1991 to 2020 at the London airport station give a January daily average of minus 5.4 degrees, 10 cm of snow on the ground at the end of January and 7 cm at the end of February, and an extreme minimum of minus 29.1. Snow sits against a London garage door for the length of the winter instead of arriving and leaving, and meltwater runs back toward the slab every time the sun comes out.

The bottom seal is the part of an installation that meets that. It is a rubber astragal in an aluminium retainer along the bottom section, and it is specified for the floor it lands on. A flat slab takes a standard profile. A slab that has heaved or sunk along the door line takes a deeper bulb, or a threshold strip glued to the concrete so the seal has something level to close onto, and the threshold also stops meltwater running under the door, which is what freezes a seal into the floor in the first place. The wall stands open while the old door comes out and the new one goes up, so a winter fit is booked with the forecast in front of it.

Heated or unheated: the perimeter changes with it

The garage doors page covers the insulation inside the door. The installation decision is about the edges. On an attached garage that shares a wall with the house, and on any garage with a heater in it, the weatherstripping on the jambs and header is fitted tight to the door face and the bottom seal closes on the threshold with no daylight, because the door is now the coldest wall of a heated room. On a detached garage on its own slab the risk runs the other way: the seal freezes to the concrete. A threshold under it and a silicone spray on the rubber before the snow are the two things that stop that, and both are install-day items.

The openings behind London's older streets

London has 39,135 dwellings built in 1960 or before, and a great many have a detached garage at the back that arrived after the house. In Wortley Village and Old South the streets were finished before the Second World War; in the Bishop Hellmuth district the houses are Queen Anne Revival brick from before the First World War. The garage behind one is narrower and lower than any opening a subdivision builder would draw. That is the low-headroom case from the installation page, and the measurement is the quote.

Permits: the City, and the heritage districts

The City of London's building permit page lists replacing an existing door with one of the same size as work that needs no permit, and adding a door or enlarging an opening as work that does; a detached garage is on the permit list. A like-for-like garage door in the same opening is fitted without one. Widening a single to a double, or cutting a door into a garage that never had one, goes through the Building Division at 300 Dufferin Avenue first. Anywhere between those two, ask the City about that address before the door is ordered.

The heritage districts add a second office. Wortley Village-Old South, about 1,030 properties designated in 2015, and Bishop Hellmuth, north of Oxford Street, both sit under Part V of the Ontario Heritage Act. The Wortley Village plan is specific: a street-facing door replaced in the same style, material, size and shape needs no Heritage Alteration Permit, and neither does anything not visible from the street, while a street-facing door of a different style, material or proportion does. A laneway garage behind the house is outside that. A garage facing the street in either district is not, so ask the City's heritage planners about that address.

Booking an installation with the London branch

Send the contact form with the street, the width and height of the opening, whether the garage is attached or detached and heated or not, or email info@protechgarage.ca. The quote follows a measurement of the opening, which is when the slab, the driveway grade and the headroom get looked at. New doors and openers go in together where the old unit is not worth carrying over.