Our Garage Door Fell...

[Natarator]

...and I really need to get a ballpark-ish answer as soon as possible. We have a 2-1/2 car, detached garage, whose overhead door had been giving me some problems upon raising, and closing it, fir a good while. Last month, it just fell down. The one track has come away from its vertical mounting piece, and the cable may need replacing. But what I need to know, is this:

I have made calls to our local garage door repair businesses, in hopes of getting a free estimate on repair. All of them stated that there'd be a $70 fee, just for someone to come out. When I asked about even a guesstimate on what the job (that I had described pretty clearly) might cost. They couldn't do that. The problem is that I am on fixed income, and that I'd need to know - beforehand - if I would be able to handle repair costs. I just couldn't afford to she'll out $70, initially, only to (maybe) find that such a job would be cost prohibitive fir me. The door is steel and/or aluminum, and it doesn't appear to have damaged by the fall. It just needs (as far as I can tell) to re-cabled and re-installed. Could anyone give me what they'd feel such a job might cost?

Nate

[TJR]

It's hard to tell not being at your place. I'll say keep calling everyone in the phone book, explain your situation with the door and money. Hope you can get some to give you a free estimate or pay the service fee and have it deduct from the repair cost. One company will say $ 200, the second $ 500 and the third might just say you need a new door. Our price right now is almost $ 800 for a complete 16 X 7 door minus the opener. That's as close as I can get, hope it help.

[Natarator]

It's hard to tell not being at your place. I'll say keep calling everyone in the phone book, explain your situation with the door and money. Hope you can get some to give you a free estimate or pay the service fee and have it deduct from the repair cost. One company will say $ 200, the second $ 500 and the third might just say you need a new door. Our price right now is almost $ 800 for a complete 16 X 7 door minus the opener. That's as close as I can get, hope it help.

Thanks for responding, TJR.

You know, I DO understand their mindsets - on charging a fee for their estimates. Most potential customers typically get three estimates, and wind up leaning toward the lowest of the three given. The two who lost out also lost out on time away from other, possible, jobs. All that I had talked to stated that the $70 estimate fee would go towards the cost of any work to be performed. But iTMS imperative that I have a 'worst case scenario' pricing quote for the re-installation of our garage door. If they said that such a job shouldn't exceed $200, that would be all right. $200 is an amount that we could handle. But if they came out and determined tha the job would be $500 (just saying), then that would be something that we certainly could NIT handle. Plus, we would have lost $70, to boot. I believe that I have called every garage door company that services our locality, and they are all of the same policy - regarding their estimates. I don't know; it's kinda like we are between a rock and a hard place, with this garage door matter.

But thanks, again.

Nathan