Garage doors in Newmarket

A town with no room left to build out

Timothy Rogers brought Quaker families up from Vermont and Pennsylvania between 1801 and 1803. The railway arrived in June 1853, the village was incorporated in 1857 with 700 people and the town in 1880 with 2,000. Upper Canada Mall opened at Yonge and Davis in 1974 and pulled the town's centre west; Highway 404 then pulled development back east, and Newmarket now runs from Bathurst Street to the 404 with farmland on neither side to spare. The population was 29,753 in 1981 and 87,942 in 2021.

The census says what that did to the housing. Of 30,300 occupied homes, 5,970 were built from 1961 to 1980, 5,510 in the 1980s and 6,440 in the 1990s: 17,920 homes, 59 per cent of the town. Only 3,645 have been built since 2011. The Town's own growth plan puts the future in redeveloping the Yonge Street and Davis Drive corridors, 290 hectares in all, rather than in new subdivisions. So the garage door on a Newmarket street is thirty to sixty years old, and it is a door the owner chooses to replace rather than one a builder chose.

Choosing a door for a 1970s or 1980s house

Two things decide it. The first is the opening. A 1970s single here is often eight feet wide under a low header, and a new door in that same opening needs no permit: the Town lists replacing doors and windows that are the same size as existing among the work that does not need one. Widening the opening does, and building.permits@newmarket.ca answers for the address. The second is what is behind the door. A garage under a bedroom in Stonehaven or beside the kitchen in Glenway is a different door from a detached garage off Main Street, and the residential doors page explains the constructions without repeating it here. Pick the panel and the colour in the Build Your Door designer and ask for a price on that.

Main Street and the heritage district

Lower Main Street South is Newmarket's one Heritage Conservation District, designated by Council on 21 October 2013, 72 properties along the old commercial strip and the residential streets around it by the Holland River. Alterations there need a heritage permit. The garages are behind the houses, added long after them, and a door on one is a heritage question before it is a hardware question; a carriage-style door in the right colour is usually the answer the heritage planner wants, and Garaga builds them.

Openers, and repair when the old door stays

A 1985 door with sound panels and one broken spring is a repair, and Protech's garage door repair page covers what the visit does. The opener is a separate decision: a chain drive from the 1990s that runs loud under a bedroom gets replaced with a belt drive at the same visit as the spring, and a door balanced by new springs is the door a new opener should be hung on. Southlake Regional Health Centre and the plazas along Yonge and Davis run commercial doors, and Protech services and replaces commercial doors too.

Getting a van from Mississauga

Bonhill Road is off Dixie Road, and the van rides the 407 to the 400 and comes east on Davis Drive, or takes the 404 up, about 60 km by road either way. It is the farthest north of this branch's York Region pages. There is no Newmarket premises. Repairs are booked same day, and at 60 km that means a window in the day rather than the next hour. Give the street; Glenway and Stonehaven are on opposite sides of town.

Repair or replace, and what it costs

A 1992 double in Summerhill with a spring gone is a repair. A 1968 single off Main Street with rust through the bottom rail is a replacement, and a spring on it is money spent on a door that is leaving. A door that is thirty years old and dented in two panels is a judgement call. Ask for the repair figure and the replacement figure together.

Send the form

Use the contact form or email info@protechgarage.ca. Give the width of the opening if you have a tape measure, and say what is behind the garage wall. For a repair, say what the door is doing.