Garage door repair, installation and openers in Oshawa

The car town has two halves, and the door tells you which

R. S. McLaughlin started building cars in Oshawa in 1907 and formed General Motors of Canada in 1918. The population went from 4,000 to 16,000 in the 1920s and Oshawa became a city on 8 March 1924. The last car left the assembly line on 20 December 2018, and the first Silverado came off it in 2021 after a $1.3 billion retooling. The city that grew up around the plant is still there: 15,700 of its 66,630 occupied dwellings were built in 1960 or before, and another 23,330 between 1961 and 1980. That is 59 per cent of the city's homes older than 1981.

South of the 401, in Lakeview and the streets that grew up between the harbour and the plant, the garage is a small detached building at the end of a driveway, on its own slab, unheated and not always wired. If there is no power to the garage, say so on the form: an opener needs a circuit, and that is an electrician before it is us. The door on that building is a single, and when the slab has heaved the door no longer meets it square. A heavier bottom section and a new bottom seal fix the draught. A slab that keeps moving is a reason to replace the door with one that can take it.

North of Taunton, the doors are young

Windfields Farm bred Northern Dancer. The farm stopped operating in November 2009, large parts of its land went to the University of Ontario Institute of Technology and Durham College, and by 2018 houses were going up on about 115 acres of former paddock. Ontario Tech and Durham College sit at the north end of the city, which counts 22,000 full-time students across three institutions, and 14,240 dwellings were built in Oshawa between 2001 and 2021. Those are attached double garages under bedrooms, and the door on them is the one the builder chose. The opener is the first thing to wear on those streets, and a quieter belt drive with battery backup is the usual replacement. The models are on garage door openers.

The port, the plant and the 407

The Port of Oshawa handles the auto and steel trades, winter road salt and agricultural fertilizer. Highway 407 East opened to Harmony Road on 20 June 2016, and the 412 and 418 links went toll-free on 5 April 2022, which is why the warehouses and supplier shops along the 401 and the 407 have kept coming. Those buildings run commercial overhead doors on high-cycle openers, and a loading door that stands open on a January afternoon is the one that fails in February. Protech services and replaces commercial garage doors and commercial openers as well as the residential ones.

Openers installed and replaced, LiftMaster, Chamberlain and Genie, and repaired when the motor runs and the door stays put, through opener repair. New overhead doors from Garaga, Amarr and Stanley, which you can see on your own house first with Design Your Door. Repairs on springs, cables, rollers and doors off their track through garage door repair.

Getting a van to Oshawa

Bonhill Road to downtown Oshawa is about 75 km by road, 66 of them on the 401. When the 401 is stopped at Whitby, the 407 to the 412 is the way in, and the toll came off the 412 in 2022. There is no Oshawa premises. This is near the far end of the Mississauga run, which is why a same-day call here is a longer window than in Mississauga, and why the form asks for the street: Lakeview and Windfields are at opposite ends of Simcoe Street. Repairs are booked same day.

Permits in Oshawa

The City of Oshawa's Accessory Structures page draws the line at size. A storage shed of no more than 15 square metres needs no permit. Anything else needs one unless it is 10 square metres or less and stands on its own with no plumbing, and every structure has to meet the Ontario Building Code and the zoning by-law whether or not a permit is needed. Replacing the door on an existing garage is not on that list. Building a new detached garage behind a Lakeview house is, and the by-law sets where it can stand on the lot.

Repair or replace, and what it costs

An Oshawa bill splits by the building the door is on. On a detached single with a wood door, a spring and cables are money against a door whose bottom rail may already be rotting from the slab, and the honest advice is often to replace it and put the opener money in at the same time. On a 2010 double north of Taunton, the door is fine and the opener is the bill. Between the two, a 1970s attached single that shares a wall with the kitchen is the case where an insulated replacement changes the house. Ask for the repair figure and the replacement figure together. The comparison is spelled out on garage door replacement.

Garage doors in Oshawa

Garage doors in Oshawa include the ones on its heritage properties, and those can need the City's approval before they change. A property designated under Part IV of the Ontario Heritage Act needs a Heritage Permit for an alteration under section 33 of the Act. Staff first decide whether the change touches the property's heritage attributes. If it does, Heritage Oshawa comments, and Council approves, approves with conditions or refuses, with an appeal to the Ontario Land Tribunal. A property on the register that is listed but not designated is reviewed by staff, with Heritage Oshawa consulted where its attributes are touched, and needs no Council approval.

Those attributes are written into each designation by-law, so the by-law for the address, not the age of the house, says whether a coach house or its doors are protected. Designation does not rule out a new door: the City says Heritage Oshawa encourages alterations that restore or complement a property's heritage attributes, which favours a door chosen to suit the house, a carriage-house style for one, over the plainest flush panel. Design Your Door shows the options on a photograph of the house, and the City recommends talking to Planning Services before an application goes in.

Send the form

Send the form with the street, whether the garage is attached, and what the door is doing, or email info@protechgarage.ca. The Mississauga branch replies with a time.