A rusted bottom section, a dent from a spring hailstorm or a crease from a bumper doesn't have to mean a new door. OnPoint Pro Doors Kansas City replaces single sections when the maker still builds a match, and tells you honestly when a door has reached the end of the line. You get a free estimate before anything is ordered.
Tell us what's happening. Free estimate, nothing owed.
The damage usually starts quietly. All summer a closed garage holds damp air against the inside of the door, and the bottom section, which already sits in whatever water runs under the seal, begins to rust along its lower edge. Then winter brings freezing rain and the salt that rides in on tires, and the rust that started in July is through the skin by February.
The other half of the work is sudden: hail that dents the face in a spring storm, a gust that slams a wide door into the stops, or a car that comes in a little too fast. Those leave a dent or a crease in one or two sections and leave the rest of the door perfectly good.
Rust hides behind the bottom seal, so it is often further along than it looks from the driveway. The technician pulls the seal back and checks the edge of the steel before deciding whether a section can stay.
A shallow dent in the middle of a panel is cosmetic, and plenty of doors carry one for years without trouble. A section that has folded along a line is a different story. It no longer stays flat as it travels, the rollers on that section ride crooked in the track, and the hinges on either side start pulling at their screws.
From there the damage spreads to the parts that move the door. The opener strains on the same spot every trip, a cable on the binding side can go slack and jump its drum, and the door starts closing out of square. Replacing the bent section early keeps a cosmetic problem from turning into a cable or opener repair.
If the door's maker still builds that section in the same size, style and thickness, replacing it is usually the sensible choice. The new section takes the old one's place, the hinges and rollers go back on, and the door works the way it did before the damage.
The label on the inside of a section, or a photo of the door and its hardware, usually tells us the maker and the line. With that, availability can be checked before the visit, so the measuring trip is also the trip where you hear whether a match exists.
Not every door can take a new section. Discontinued designs, makers that have closed and doors built decades ago often have no match left, and a section from a different line looks out of place on the front of the house. You hear that plainly, with the honest options: live with a cosmetic dent, accept a close-but-not-identical section, or replace the door.
When rust has reached more than one section, or hail has dented most of the face, a new door is often the better use of the money, and the technician says so instead of selling panel after panel.
Many houses here have Wayne Dalton doors with the TorqueMaster system, where the spring sits inside the tube above the door. Sections for those doors are replaced the same way as on any other door, but the tension in the tube has to be released and reset with the tools that system calls for before a section comes out.
Because the spring in the tube is sized to the door's weight, it gets adjusted after the new section goes in, just like an open torsion spring would.
The heavy wood doors on the garages behind the older bungalows swell in the humid months and shrink in the cold, and their bottom panels rot first. A wood section can sometimes be rebuilt by a carpenter, but a factory match is rare.
For a lot of those garages, replacing the whole door with a lighter steel or composite carriage design is the better answer. It keeps the look the street expects, ends the yearly painting and takes a load off the springs and the opener.
If the frame around an old opening has rotted along with the door, the jambs are rebuilt before the new door goes up, and that work is listed on the estimate as its own line.
Usually two visits: one to measure and order, one to install.
Wide double doors carry struts across some sections to keep them straight against the wind, and a bent strut is replaced with the section it supports. Window sections are matched by window layout as well as size, so the row across the top still lines up.
Insulated doors need insulated sections of the same thickness. Dropping a thin pan section into a foam-filled door leaves a cold, rattling weak spot, and on a split-level with a bedroom over the garage, that is the spot you hear.
Usually, if the maker still builds it. The bottom section takes the rust and the bumps, and it is the one we replace most often.
The maker's label, usually inside a section near one end, tells us the line. A photo of it on the call lets us check before the visit.
Yes. The tension in the tube is released and reset with the tools that system needs, and the spring is adjusted to the door's new weight.
If one or two sections are badly dented and the rest is sound, often yes. If most of the face is dented, a new door usually makes more sense.
A small dent can be left alone, but a section that has folded doesn't get its strength back. It is replaced rather than straightened.
It matches the factory color. On an older door the new section can look slightly fresher at first.
Rotted wood sections rarely have a factory match. A lighter steel or composite carriage door is often the better replacement.
Yes. Measuring, the options and a free estimate come before any section is ordered.
We need three things: a name, a number, and what the door is doing. Everything before you agree to it asks nothing of you, across the whole of Jackson County.
Quicker to talk? Call (816) 315-5261.
Tell us what's happening. Free estimate, nothing owed.