Questions we get asked on the phone

Kansas has no garage door licence at state level, so nobody in this trade holds one and any company claiming otherwise is describing something that does not exist. Licensing here is local and it is business licensing rather than trade licensing: the Unified Government of Wyandotte County issues a business licence to work in Kansas City, and Johnson County Contractor Licensing covers Overland Park, Olathe, Lenexa, Shawnee, Prairie Village, Leawood and Merriam with Class A, B and C grades. Insurance is the thing that actually matters on a repair. We book the work; ask the contractor who arrives for their registration and their certificate of insurance, and look at it.

Diagnosis is $69 to $119 and comes off the bill if you go ahead with the repair. A genuine out-of-hours call-out — somebody driving to you in the middle of the night — carries a stated fee that you hear on the phone before anyone is dispatched. Nothing turns up on an invoice that was not said out loud first.

Same day for a door that will not open or close, which covers most calls. Everything else is usually next day. Leavenworth and Lansing are the furthest points on our route, so timing there depends on where the truck already is, and you will get an honest answer rather than an optimistic one.

A broken torsion spring, almost certainly. Look at the bar above the opening: a break shows as an obvious gap of an inch or two in the coil. The opener cannot lift the door without it, because the spring was doing nearly all of the work. Do not try to heave it up by hand and do not pull the release cord while it is part-way open.

Steel stiffens as it cools, old grease thickens, and a spring already near the end of its cycle count fails on the first genuinely cold morning. Normal January lows in the metro sit around 20 degrees and the record is 23 below. The same cold brings the other winter calls — seals frozen to the slab, photo eyes fogged with condensation, openers straining at doors that have gone heavy.

A standard 10,000-cycle spring on a door opened four or five times a day gives about six years. If the garage is how everybody enters and leaves, you are closer to ten cycles a day and three years. High-cycle springs rated at 25,000 roughly double it for a modest premium, which is why they are the sensible default on a busy door.

Not for a straight swap into the same opening — neither the Unified Government nor the Johnson County cities publishes a requirement for it. Changing the opening itself, moving the header or altering framing is building work and does need a permit. Unified Government Planning is 913-573-8620 and Overland Park Permit Services is 913-895-6220 if you want to check.

We will supply the spec sheet, the colour reference and the window configuration for your submission, and hold the order until the letter comes back. In Leawood and most newer Overland Park and Olathe subdivisions this is a real step, not a formality, and custom colours cannot be returned once ordered.

Three tests settle most cases. Is the bottom section rusting through from the inside? Is a damaged panel still manufactured? Has the door come off the rail more than once? A yes to the first, a no to the second, or a yes to the third all point to replacement. Heavy, noisy, slow and groaning are usually springs, rollers and hinges, which is a far smaller invoice.

Often, under the property section of a homeowners policy and subject to your deductible. Johnson County alone saw $91.0 million of the $128.3 million in Kansas-side storm claims in 2025. Photograph the door before anyone touches it, straight-on and in raking light, and get a written itemised estimate. If the panels cannot be matched, some insurers fund a full door.

It is common and it is fraud. Absorbing or rebating a deductible to win storm work is illegal, and the homeowner who agrees is part of it. Storm-chasing crews appear across Wyandotte and Johnson counties after every hail event. Use somebody who will still be findable in six months.

No. We cover the Kansas side only — Wyandotte, Johnson and Leavenworth counties. It keeps drive times short enough that same day genuinely means same day. If you are in Kansas City MO, Independence, Lee's Summit or Liberty, we will tell you straight away rather than taking a booking we cannot serve.

Rollers, a bottom seal, and nudging a photo eye back into alignment, carefully, yes — and wiping condensation off the sensor lenses solves a surprising number of winter problems in two minutes. Springs and cables, no. A torsion spring stores enough energy to break an arm, and the usual injury is a winding bar escaping the cone.

No. Technicians work seven days at the same rates. Only a genuine middle-of-the-night emergency carries an after-hours fee, and it is quoted before anyone sets off.