Homeowner guides
Garage door answers before the truck rolls
The checks we walk DeKalb callers through on the phone, written down. Some of these fix the door in five minutes for free. One of them exists to keep you away from the repair that hurts people.
Does the door still stop? Testing a garage door's two safety systems
A door that closes every time can still fail the one job that matters when something is under it. Two separate systems handle that job, and each has a test you can run in about a minute.
Read the guide →The garage door that opens by itself: trace the signal back to the sender
Something told the opener to run, and the sender is nearly always one of six things. They come below in the order a technician rules them out, each with the overnight test that settles it.
Read the guide →Garage door repair on a rental: who calls, who signs off, and what the file should hold
A rental door repair has one more moving part than a homeowner's, and it is not in the garage. Here is how the tenant, the owner, and the tech divide the job so nothing stalls waiting on an approval.
Read the guide →The detached alley garage: why the door jumps the track, and what fresh hardware fixes
In the old blocks between downtown and NIU, the garage has as much to do with an off-track door as the door does. What the building is doing to your hardware, and which parts of it are worth fixing.
Read the guide →Garage door weather seal: find the gap before you buy the rubber
Most garages leak at one seal out of four. Look at what has collected on the floor inside the door and it will tell you which one, and whether rubber is the fix at all.
Read the guide →Keypad or remote not working: start where you're standing
For a lot of DeKalb households the keypad is the front door. Kids use it, the dog walker uses it, nobody carries a remote. So when it dies, start there, and let what still works tell you what broke.
Read the guide →Garage door maintenance by age: what your door needs this year, not what the manual says
A three-year-old door and a twenty-year-old door do not need the same tune-up, and paying for the same one on both is how maintenance money gets wasted. Find your door's age first. The rest of the plan follows from it.
Read the guide →Garage door won't close: the door thinks it's protecting something
A door that opens fine but refuses to close is almost never broken. Some safety system believes there is a reason to stop, and your job is to find out which one and whether it's right.
Read the guide →Garage door won't open: run the checks in cost order
Half the stuck doors we get called about in DeKalb open again without a truck. Work down this list in order; it is sorted from free to phone call, and it tells you where to stop.
Read the guide →Opener not working: split the system in half
An opener is three systems wearing one plastic cover: power, radio, and mechanics. Three quick tests tell you which one quit, and two of the three are often fixable without us.
Read the guide →Opening a garage door with a broken spring, safely or not at all
Yes, it can be done to free a trapped car. It takes two adults, a specific sequence, and respect for what the door weighs without its spring. Here is the honest version, including when the answer is no.
Read the guide →Free written quote
Tell us what the door is doing. We’ll tell you what it costs.
A sentence or two is enough: the noise it made, whether it moves at all, roughly how old it is. We call back with a plain diagnosis and a number you can hold us to. If it’s easier to talk, call (815) 217-2177.
- The price is written down before anyone touches the door, and the finished job matches the paper
- If a repair is a bad buy on a door that old, we say so on the phone and save both of us the trip
- Your request goes to a DeKalb County outfit, not a lead broker who resells it to three out-of-town dispatchers