Garage door repair in Barrhaven

Three build waves, and they fail on different schedules

Barrhaven started in 1960 as a suburb outside the Greenbelt, on land owned by Mel Barr, whose name it kept. Longfields went up mostly in the early 1990s. Stonebridge was proposed in 1989, planned in 1997 and began building around its golf course in 2000. Barrhaven South was approved in 1997, its final plan came out in 2006, and the first Half Moon Bay houses were built in 2007. Nothing has stopped since.

That is an unusually wide spread inside one district. Within a few kilometres there are garage doors past their thirtieth winter and garage doors still inside a builder warranty, and the two are not calling about the same thing.

What each wave calls about

The early 1990s streets are on their second or third set of springs. A torsion pair fitted with the house has been replaced at least once by now if it has been touched at all, and the cables that ran alongside it are frayed at the drum whether or not anybody has looked. Doing the springs and the cables in one visit is cheaper than two visits, and on a door this age it is usually one job rather than two.

The Stonebridge and Longfields doors of the early 2000s are in the window where the opener goes before the door does. The nylon drive gear inside the motor head strips its teeth, the motor runs, and the door stays exactly where it was. That is a gear kit and a repair, not a new opener, and it is worth asking why it stripped: a gear kit that failed while dragging a door with worn springs will strip again unless the door is dealt with.

Half Moon Bay and the streets south of it are reaching their first spring failure now, and on a newer door it announces itself slowly. The door gets heavy over a season. The opener strains and slows. The safety reversal starts tripping on the floor. Then one morning there is a bang from the garage and the door will not lift at all.

Attached doubles, and the wall the house shares

Barrhaven is overwhelmingly a district of attached double garages, which changes what a replacement door should be. A garage sharing a heated wall with the house wants an insulated door: three layers with polyurethane between them rather than a polystyrene board, because the injected foam bonds to both steel skins and gives a stiffer, quieter door as well as a warmer garage.

The catch is weight. An insulated three-layer door is heavier than the builder-grade door it replaces, and the springs have to be sized to the new door rather than reused from the old one. Putting a heavier door on the original springs is how a new door ends up straining its opener from the first week.

The drive from Nepean

The shop is at 46 Grenfell Crescent in Nepean, north of Barrhaven, and the same van covers both. Protech is not a Barrhaven firm, and its address is not in Barrhaven. What it has is a line that answers at three in the morning and a truck that carries the common parts, so a spring call is usually finished on the first visit.

What it costs

The visit plus the part, and which part it is decides most of the bill. Say the neighbourhood and the age of the house when you call and you will get a much closer answer on the phone than any page can give you, because in Barrhaven the age of the house is a good guess at what has failed.

Call from anywhere in Barrhaven

(613) 845-9950 rings at any hour. Have the neighbourhood, whether the door is single or double, and what you can see or hear. For a new-door quote with no rush behind it, email info@protechgarage.ca.