These are the questions Hampton Roads homeowners actually ask us on the phone, answered the way we answer them there: first sentence first, details after, no runaround.
You physically can on some doors and you should not: the spring carried the weight, so you and the opener now carry all of it. Lifting a spring-dead double door risks backs and fingers, and running the opener strips its gears. If a vehicle is trapped, call us; freeing cars past dead springs is routine emergency work.
A door that free-falls has lost its counterbalance: snapped spring, snapped cable or a drum letting go. Do not cycle it again, keep people away, and treat it as an emergency call. Modern doors with intact hardware cannot free-fall; something failed.
Two parts routinely injure people: torsion springs and the cables and bottom brackets under their tension. Everything else, seals, keypads, lubrication, sensor alignment, is fair homeowner territory. The trade’s injury statistics are almost entirely the first category.
Stuck or shorted wall-button wiring, a neighbor on a legacy fixed-code frequency, water in an exterior keypad, or a remote pinned under a car seat. Modern rolling-code openers are not being “hacked” in practice; the cause is almost always electrical or a stray transmitter, and it is diagnosable in one visit.
A professional tune and balance check every 12 to 18 months, plus the 20-minute homeowner lubrication routine twice a year. High-cycle households and salt-air homes shorten both intervals. It is the cheapest category of money a door ever costs.
Most single-issue repairs, springs, cables, rollers, sensors, finish inside an hour on site. Off-track rebuilds and multi-part corrosion cases run longer, and we say so when booking rather than after.
For garage access, someone does, or a way in arranged in advance. For exterior-only work and quotes, no. Payment and approval can both happen by phone.
Where the symptom names the job, broken torsion spring on a standard double, yes, and that number holds unless the door hides a surprise, which we show you before touching it. Where diagnosis is truly needed, you get the market band on the phone and the exact number at the door, before work.
Replacement doors commonly fall under local permitting in Hampton Roads localities, and coastal addresses can be asked for wind-load documentation. We handle the paperwork question during quoting for your specific address rather than guessing city-wide.
We install Clopay, Amarr, CHI and Wayne Dalton doors, and LiftMaster, Chamberlain and Genie openers, and we service essentially everything with parts still in circulation, including discontinued brands where hardware is generic.
Standard torsion track wants 10 to 12 inches between the header and ceiling; low-headroom kits work down to roughly 4.5 inches; jackshaft openers remove the ceiling question entirely. Older Norfolk and Portsmouth garages fail this test constantly and still get good doors, measured first.
Insulated sandwich sections, sealed nylon rollers, a belt-drive DC opener and correct spring balance, in that combination. Any one alone helps; together they make a door you stop noticing, which is the point.
Phone guidance costs nothing, and new-door quotes at your home are free. Diagnostic visits on repairs carry the stated trip fee, told to you when booking, and it folds into the job when you proceed.
Payment happens on completion, after you have seen the work and the old parts. Standard cards and the usual methods; the exact price was agreed before work started, so the invoice is never a reveal.
1 year parts and labor on completed work, in writing, under Virginia Class C contractor license 2705201522. Manufacturer warranties on new doors and openers stack on top.
Yes, on new door installations. Terms come from the financing provider at quote time; ask when you call and we walk you through it.
