Garage Door Installation in Los Angeles
A garage door is the largest moving object in most houses and, on a great many streets in this city, the largest single thing anybody sees from the kerb. It also has to run smoothly several thousand times a year for twenty years or more. Both of those matter, and a door chosen well and hung properly quietly delivers both.
We measure, supply and fit new doors across every neighborhood in Los Angeles, which is one part of what we do on Los Angeles Garage Doors and the rest is set out on the home page. Installation starts at $749 including removal and disposal of the old door, and a standard single or double replacement is finished in a day.
Measuring and Quoting
Nothing is quoted from a photograph. Our installer comes out, measures the opening width and height, the headroom above it, the backroom behind it and the sideroom on each side, and checks whether the existing jambs are sound and square, because a great many older Los Angeles garages have settled a little over the decades. Low headroom is the one that catches people out, and where a garage has under twelve inches above the opening a low headroom track and a different spring arrangement are needed. You get a written figure covering the door, the track, the springs, the hardware, the labour, the removal and the opener where one is included.
Choosing the Door
Steel sectional doors are what most of this city fits, because they are strong, they take a finish well and they cost the least to keep. Insulated steel adds a polystyrene or polyurethane core, which is worth having on any garage that is used as a workshop, a gym, a laundry or a room, and which also stiffens the door and makes it noticeably quieter. Timber and timber faced doors suit the Spanish and Craftsman houses common through Los Feliz, Hancock Park and the older parts of the Valley, though they need refinishing on a schedule in this climate. Full view aluminium and glass doors read modern and are increasingly asked for on the Westside. Carriage house doors give the swinging barn look while still lifting overhead. Our installer will tell you what each will cost to own, not just to buy.
Insulation and R Values
Insulation on a Los Angeles garage door is less about winter than about the afternoon. A west facing garage in the Valley behind an uninsulated steel door becomes genuinely unusable from June onward, and anything stored in there suffers for it. An R value in the region of 9 to 13 makes a real difference to a garage attached to living space, and where the room above the garage is a bedroom the quietness that comes with a thicker, stiffer door matters as much as the temperature. Where a garage is detached, unused and simply parking a car, the money is usually better spent elsewhere and we will say so.
Installation Day
The old door comes down first, section by section, with the springs safely unwound before anything is disconnected, and it leaves on our van rather than leaning against your fence. New vertical track is fitted plumb to the jambs, the sections go in from the bottom with hinges and rollers as they rise, the horizontal track and the spring assembly are hung and squared, cables are set on the drums evenly, and the springs are wound to suit the actual weight of the door. Then the door is balanced by hand, run through its full travel several times, and the opener is mounted or reconnected and its limits and force settings set to the new door. A standard double takes four to six hours.
New Openers with a New Door
A new door is the sensible moment to deal with an old opener, because the limits and forces have to be reset anyway and a fifteen year old chain drive next to a new insulated door tends to be the loudest thing left in the house. Belt drives are what we fit most often now, particularly under bedrooms. Wall mounted jackshaft units free the ceiling entirely, which suits garages with storage racks or very lowheadroom. That decision sits in more detail on our opener installation page.
Permits, HOAs and Rentals
Straight like for like replacement of a residential garage door in the City of Los Angeles does not usually involve you in much, though structural alteration to the opening is another matter and we will tell you plainly when a job has crossed that line. Where you sit inside an HOA, and a great deal of the Westside and the hillside tracts do, colour and style are often specified and it is worth having that in writing before ordering. Landlords and property managers we quote per unit across a building, with one schedule and one invoice.
Installation Prices
A standard single door fitted starts at $749 and a standard double from $1,150, both including removal and disposal of the old door, new track, springs and hardware. Insulated steel typically lands between $1,400 and $2,000 for a double. Timber faced, full view aluminium and custom carriage doors run higher and are quoted individually. Adding a belt drive opener with the installation starts at $265 fitted. Everything is written down before anything is ordered, doors carry the manufacturer's warranty and our installation carries a year.
