Garage Door Stuck

California

Garage door repair in Los Angeles County, CA

Garage door repair and replacement in Los Angeles County, sorted by what stopped working. Here half the homes were built before 1965 and the area averages 1 freezing night a year.

Towns and communities in Los Angeles County

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What is different about Los Angeles County

Openers older than the safety rule

Half the housing in Los Angeles County was built before 1965. A home that still has the opener it was built with may have one older than the federal protections: openers made for sale after January 1, 1991 have had to reverse on contact, and a second, external protection, usually photo-eye sensors near the floor, was required from 1993. If yours has no sensors near the floor, run the reverse test before anything else.

The reverse test

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2019–2023 5-year estimates; CPSC Publication 523, non-reversing automatic garage door openers

Mild winters

On average, Los Angeles County has 1 day a year with a low at or below 32°F at the nearest NOAA climate normals station, about 5 miles away. In a freeze, the rubber seal along the bottom of a door can stick to the floor; free it before blaming the opener.

Garage door won’t open

Source: NOAA NCEI, U.S. Climate Normals 1991–2020

What stopped working?

Who licenses the work in California

California has a license class for this work: D-28, Doors, Gates and Activating Devices. The CSLB describes it as a contractor who "installs, modifies or repairs all types of residential, commercial or industrial doors including overhead or sliding door assemblies." Under Business and Professions Code § 7048, a state license is needed for a job of $1,000 or more in labor and materials, or for any job that requires a building permit, and the small-job exemption does not cover anyone who advertises as a contractor or has employees.

Look up a license with the Contractors State License Board (CSLB)

California requires anyone hired to service or repair a residential opener to check, when the work is done, whether it reverses on contact with a rigid obstacle two inches high, and to affix a red certificate to an opener that fails (Health & Safety Code § 19890(e)). Since July 1, 2019, openers installed in the state must have a battery backup, and a replacement door may not be connected to an existing opener without one (§ 19892).

A garage door technician kneeling to check a safety sensor near the bottom of the door track

What a technician will ask

  • What stopped working, in one sentence: a bang and then the door would not lift, a crooked door, a door that goes back up.
  • The door: sectional panels or one solid piece, one car wide or two, and roughly how old.
  • The springs: a coil on a bar above the door, or springs along the tracks, and whether one shows a gap.
  • The name on the opener’s motor housing, and roughly how old it is.
  • Whether the door is open or closed right now, and whether a car is inside.

Having these ready keeps the first call to a garage door company short. The price is named after someone has seen the door.