Read your door from the bottom up.
Four plain questions, about two minutes. As you answer, the read rises up the door the same way we read one on site: slab, bottom rail, running gear, springs. At the end you get what your answers are consistent with, what’s safe to touch, and which visit to book. It never guesses a price and it never pretends to be a diagnosis.
The read
Answer the four questions and the read appears here, level and plain.
None of this is a diagnosis. It’s what your answers are consistent with; the verdict comes after we’ve seen the door.
Answer the questions and the read rises.
Because the bottom of the door doesn’t lie.
Paint hides a lot from a distance, and a door can look fine from the driveway for years after the bottom rail has started keeping different records. Rust, a perished seal, grit in the track feet: that’s where age, water and lake air show first, so that’s where an honest read starts. The full guide walks through the whole read.
Where the read stops being DIY. Springs, lift cables and the bottom brackets they anchor to hold the door’s full weight under tension, door up or door down. Look at them all you like; never unbolt or wind them. That line is exactly where our job starts.