Garage door repair near you
Yes, we cover all of Foster-Powell, the triangle between Powell, Foster and 82nd, where the jobs run to new springs, lift cables and rollers, including on single-car garages at the end of long side driveways.
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Foster-Powell's 1890s to 1910s homes and 1910s to 1930s bungalows grew along an 1890s streetcar line, with shops and traffic kept to the three arterials at its edges.
Behind some of those older houses, a side driveway runs back to a detached single-car garage in the rear yard, while newer houses and apartments bring newer doors into the mix. About four in ten Foster-Powell households were renters in 2010, and the library and community groups note growing Russian, Vietnamese, Chinese and Hispanic populations.
An older single-car door may hang from two extension springs that stretch beside the horizontal tracks, rather than a torsion spring above the opening. That changes the repair. Extension springs need safety cables running through their centers, and we look for those cables on every extension-spring door we open up. Newer infill doors are more likely to carry torsion springs on a shaft over the opening.
A garage at the end of a Foster-Powell side driveway sits well back from the street, one bay wide, with a single door facing down the drive. Being out of sight keeps it out of mind until a spring or cable lets go.
On a light door, the hardest-working parts wear first: extension springs that stretch on every cycle, the pulleys and lift cables they run over, and rollers riding in tracks screwed to old framing. A frayed cable announces itself when the door rises crooked, one side ahead of the other, and that is the moment to stop running it.
Light single-bay doors behind Foster-Powell houses bring calls for extension springs, lift cables, off-track doors and rollers, and the shopfronts along its edges add commercial doors.
If your door hangs from extension springs along the tracks, we replace both springs together so the two sides pull evenly, then thread a containment cable down the middle of every spring so a snapped coil stays put instead of flying across the garage. Moving to a torsion spring is an option we can price on the same visit.
Lift cables on extension-spring doors run over pulleys rather than drums, and a cable rusting at its lower end, beside the bottom bracket, eventually frays and lets one side sag. We fit new cables on both sides, check every pulley and replace any with a cracked wheel or seized axle, then square the door in its opening.
When one extension spring weakens ahead of the other, the door lifts unevenly and a roller can climb out of the track. We secure the door, set it back on, reshape or swap any kinked track section and correct the uneven pull that started it, because a door reset without that fix tends to jump again.
Steel rollers that have run in the same tracks for decades grind, wobble and wear flat spots. Nylon rollers with sealed bearings run quieter in a garage that backs onto the neighbor's yard, and new hinges, replacing any cracked one before it pulls free, stop the sections from flexing through the curve of the track.
Storefronts, small shops and apartment buildings along Powell, Foster and 82nd may have garage and service doors of their own, and we can look at one on the same trip as a house call inside the triangle. Busy delivery doors go through springs and rollers far faster than a house door.
Three sides of Foster-Powell are arterials, which makes it simple to reach: SE Powell Blvd (US 26) on the north, SE Foster Rd on the southwest and SE 82nd Ave on the east, with I-205 a short way past 82nd.
Cross streets such as SE 52nd Ave, SE 72nd Ave and SE Holgate Blvd carry us onto the residential grid inside the triangle, where we park at the curb near your block. The longer walk can be up the driveway, so mention a car parked between the street and the garage, or a locked side gate, and we will plan for it.
Foster-Powell's sidewalks were built in 1912.
Firland Parkway is a tree-lined median on SE 72nd Ave between Foster Rd and Holgate Blvd.
Kern Park, Essex Park and Laurelwood Park are Foster-Powell landmarks, as are the library branch at SE 79th Ave and Holgate Blvd and Marysville Elementary School, whose southeast wing burned on November 10, 2009.
TriMet's 14, 9, 72 and 17 bus lines run along Foster, Powell, 82nd and Holgate.
A Portland Streetcar extension on Foster and a MAX line on Powell have both been discussed over the years, but neither was built.
Yes, the whole triangle. Foster-Powell sits in the 97206 ZIP, and every block from the bungalows near Kern Park to the houses and apartments along 82nd and Foster is on our Southeast Portland routes. Neighbors just past the edges, in Woodstock, Lents or Mt. Tabor, are covered too, at the same posted prices, so which side of an arterial you live on never changes the number.
Yes, through our commercial and multifamily service. Storefronts, small shops and apartment buildings on the Powell, Foster and 82nd edges of Foster-Powell can have doors that cycle far more than a house door, so springs and rollers wear quickly. Tell us when the door can come out of service without blocking deliveries, and the visit can share a trip with a house call inside the triangle.
No. Foster-Powell is billed from the same posted prices as inner neighborhoods like Brooklyn or Richmond, and no trip fee is added when we complete the repair on the visit. The price board shows a diagnostic visit that covers an inspection and a written quote, and it is waived the moment you approve a repair, so distance never shows up on the bill.
Yes. Those are extension springs, found on older and lighter doors, and we replace them along with the pulleys and cables they work with. Each new spring gets a safety cable through its center, which keeps a broken spring from whipping loose. If you would rather move to a torsion spring mounted over the opening, we can price that conversion on the same visit.
Yes, if they are missing. A safety cable runs through the center of each extension spring and is anchored at both ends, so when a spring breaks, the pieces stay on the cable instead of flying across the garage. Adding cables is a quick job when the springs are sound, and if the springs are rusty or stretched out, replacing springs and cables together makes more sense.
Yes. A wider opening requires a building permit from the city, since the header and framing change. A door that fits the existing single opening needs none, so a same-size swap is the simpler path. The requirements are laid out in our permits guide, and while we are there we can measure the opening and price both the same-size door and the wider plan.
Track screws lose their bite in framing that has dried and shifted for decades. In a detached single-car garage behind a Foster-Powell bungalow, the tracks may be fastened to original lumber, and every cycle of a light door tugs at those screws. We re-anchor the brackets into sound wood or add backing, then realign the tracks so the rollers stop scraping and the door runs square.
From the triangle we fan out to these neighbors along the same Powell, Foster and 82nd corridors, from Mt. Tabor in the north to Brentwood-Darlington in the south.
Call with the symptom, or text a photo of the door and the opener, and we will name the part and the posted price before anyone drives out.