Garage Door Repair &
Installation in Kent, WA

In Kent we replace both kinds. Extension springs, stretched beside the track, on the 1980s doors in Panther Lake and the older East Hill pockets, and torsion springs on the shaft above the opening on everything from the 1990s onward. Both go on correctly rated for the measured weight of the door, balanced by hand afterwards, with the opener force reset. Extension springs leave with containment cables fitted, no exceptions.

On a double door both torsion springs are replaced together. Ask for high cycle springs if the door opens more than a couple of times a day: the labor is the same and they last several times longer than the ten thousand cycle spring the builder fitted. Not sure the spring is the culprit? The signs are in our broken spring guide, and pricing factors are in the spring replacement cost guide.

A replacement door on an East Hill or West Hill house is often the first real update the garage has had, and it usually brings the tracks, springs and opener up to date with it, because the hardware that came with the old door was sized for that door. We price the package honestly and tell you when the existing opener is fine to keep, which on a 2000s house it sometimes is.

Insulated steel is the default recommendation where the garage sits under a bedroom. Some of the newer plats have an association with a garage door standard, and if yours does we give you the documents to submit first. Old door removed and hauled. Our repair or replace guide covers when panel damage means a new door rather than a fix, and the installation page covers the process.

The opener replacement in Kent is often a safety upgrade first. Openers sold since 1 January 1993 have had to include photo eye sensors, and there are still 1980s units running in Panther Lake and the older East Hill pockets that never had them, plus plenty of newer ones where the sensors have been taped over or bypassed. A door that will not reverse on an obstruction is the one thing we fix before anything else.

Beyond safety, the choice is straightforward. A belt drive for a door under a bedroom, a standard unit for a detached or rarely used garage, battery backup where there is no side door, and smart features if the Wi-Fi reaches, which we check rather than assume. Everything we fit is tested for reversal before we leave. More on the opener installation page.

On the older Kent doors the cable failure is often at the bottom bracket, rusted or pulling loose from a section that has taken water at the bottom rail. On the 1990s and 2000s doors it is a frayed cable at the drum after decades of daily cycles. Both look the same from the driveway: the door drops on one side, goes crooked and jams part way, and running the opener against it bends a section.

We replace cables as a pair, inspect the drums and bottom brackets, and reset the door square in the tracks. Rollers on these doors are mostly the original steel, and nylon rollers with sealed bearings are the cheapest way to make an older door quieter and smoother. If the door has started making a sound you have not heard before, our garage door noise guide tells you what it signals.

A tune up on a Kent door is partly maintenance and partly a safety check, because the things that get missed on a door nobody has serviced in twenty years are the things that hurt people: extension springs without containment cables, photo eyes that have been defeated, a release cord on a door that would fall if it were pulled. We go through all of it and reset the drift while we are there.

The visit covers a balance test with the opener disconnected, spring tension corrected, hinges, rollers and brackets tightened, tracks aligned, proper lubrication, weather seal inspected, opener force and limits reset, and the reversal tested with an obstruction and by breaking the sensor beam. Everything the visit covers is under maintenance.