Garage door repair, installation and openers 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.

On the newest streets the builder may still be answerable. Ontario's New Home Warranties Plan Act has every vendor warrant that a new home is built in a workmanlike manner and free from defects in material, for claims made within one year of the date on the certificate of completion unless the regulations allow longer. Normal wear and tear is excluded. A door that was faulty from the start is a question for the builder first; a door that has simply been used is a repair.

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, which is garage door opener repair rather than 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 guide to insulated garage doors explains what the R-value on a door does and does not measure.

The shared wall carries more than heat. Health Canada's attached garage study fitted exhaust fans in the garages of 33 Ottawa homes, and with the fan running, gasoline-related pollutants in the living room were 43 to 62% lower. The study notes that those pollutants get in through doors and cracks in the wall, so when the overhead door is replaced, check the seal on the door into the house as well.

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. Further south, the same van covers Manotick, where most garages stand on their own: garage door repair in Manotick.

What a garage door repair visit in Barrhaven involves

The symptom on the phone usually names the part. A bang from the garage and a door that will not lift is a torsion spring. A door hanging crooked has a cable off its drum. A motor that runs while the door sits still is the opener gear, and a door that starts down and comes back up with the light blinking is the photo-eyes, which a dry cloth across both lenses sometimes settles before anyone drives down from Nepean.

At the door, the opener is released and the door lifted by hand. That one test says whether the springs are carrying the door, and springs and cables are done before any opener work, because a gear kit fitted to an unbalanced door strips again. Before the van leaves, ask to see the door reverse against something on the floor.

For openers, Protech repairs LiftMaster, Chamberlain and Genie. For a replacement door on one of those attached doubles, it fits Garaga, Amarr and Stanley, and the springs are sized to the new door on the same 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.

Book garage door repair 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.

Protech Garage Doors has been in business since 2009. It is a Garaga dealer, its technicians are certified, and the company is fully licensed.