How to Book
Call us and describe what the door is doing: a loud snap followed by the door refusing to move, a cable hanging loose off the drum, or a door that's crooked in the opening with one side hanging lower than the other. Those details tell us what's broken before the truck even leaves. A snapped cable on a double door usually means the door is dangerous to touch - don't try to force the opener or pull the release cord while a cable is off the drum, since the other cable can still be under load. We work across the whole service area out to towns like Northfield, Hastings, and Inver Grove Heights, so when you call, give us your town and we'll tell you straight whether we can get there same day or need to schedule you next. We don't guess at parts over the phone for a cable job - we bring stock sizes that cover most residential doors built in this area and confirm the drum and track size on site before cutting anything.
The Cost of This Job
We're not going to put a number here, because a cable repair ranges depending on whether it's one cable or two, whether the drum or bottom bracket got damaged when the cable let go, and whether the door is a standard single or a wider double. What drives the cost up most often around here isn't the cable itself - it's collateral damage. A cable that snaps under full spring tension can bend a track or chew up a bottom bracket, and that's a separate repair stacked on top. Doors on original 1980s and 90s torsion hardware, common across this area's housing stock, sometimes need a bracket or roller replaced alongside the cable because the parts have been flexing under the same tension for thirty-plus years. If your opener forced the door against a frozen or binding cable before it broke, check the drive gear too - we'll tell you on site if that's worth doing in the same visit or if it's a separate call. Ask for a number when we're there and looking at the actual door, not before.
How It Shows Up
The classic sign is a bang like a gunshot from the garage, followed by the door stuck in whatever position it was in - sometimes it slams down hard if it let go while closing. Look for a cable hanging slack off one drum while the other side still looks tight, or a door sitting visibly crooked in the frame with a gap wider on one side than the other. Sometimes it's slower: fraying strands snag and fling tiny bits of wire near the bottom bracket, or the door starts jerking and hesitating partway through its travel because one cable is stretching unevenly before it finally goes. If your opener keeps running but the door won't move, or moves a few inches and stops, that's consistent with a cable off the drum rather than an opener problem. Either way, stop operating the door - a door held by one cable can drop without warning.
