A tree limb fell on the garage door. Who comes first?
Dunwoody’s oaks and pines drop limbs in every summer thunderstorm and ice storm, and sooner or later one comes down on a garage door. The insurance call can wait until morning. Tonight the question is the order things happen in, starting with whether the door is the thing holding the limb up.
What should you do first when a limb comes down on the garage door?
Leave the door and the opener alone. Unplug the opener so nobody presses the wall button or a remote in the car, then look for a wire in or under the limb before you walk up to it. Take photos from the driveway and from inside the garage before anything moves. A door the limb is holding open, or one it went through, is a call for emergency garage door repair in Dunwoody.
The opener is the easy one to forget. A motor that tries to lift a door with a limb on it pulls against a load it was never built for, and it can strip its drive gear or tear the top section loose at the hinges. The plug is usually on the ceiling next to the motor.
Look for the wire from a distance and in daylight if you can wait for it. A pine limb comes down with its needles on, and a dark line can disappear inside them.
The photos also serve the claim later, and what the insurance adjuster will want to see has its own page.
Is the door holding the limb up?
Often it is, and that is what turns a tree job into a door job too. Where the limb sits decides it. Leaning on the face of a closed door, it rests on the sections and the vertical track behind them. Through the top section, the door and the header share it. Across an open door, it lies on the sections overhead, held by the horizontal tracks and the hangers in the ceiling.
On a closed door the springs are fully wound and the cables are what holds the door against them. A door bent under that load has already shifted once, and when the weight comes off it can rack to one side, or drop if a cable left its drum when the limb hit. On an open door the springs have let most of their tension out, and bringing a bent door down winds them back up. Either way the tension is handled by the door pro around the limb’s removal. Nobody in the house should push the door down or loosen anything on the spring bar above the opening.
A limb leaning on a straight, closed door may be putting almost no weight on it. A photo of where it touches usually tells the pro which case it is.
Who comes first, the tree crew or the garage door pro?
Georgia Power first if any line is involved, then the tree crew, with the door pro there before or at the lift whenever the door is carrying the weight. The door pro does not cut or climb, and a tree crew is not there to deal with wound springs. The order runs like this:
- Georgia Power, if a line is down, tangled in the limb or touching it. Stay clear of the limb and the door and report it to the utility. Nothing else starts until the line is dealt with.
- The tree crew, to cut the limb and take it off.
- The door pro, before or at the lift when the door is holding the limb up, so the tension is under control as the weight leaves it. When the limb is lying against a closed door that is not bearing it, the door pro comes after it is gone.
- A carpenter or the roofer, if the header over the opening or the roof edge above it took the hit. A door cannot be hung true in a header that moved.
Can the garage be shut tonight with the limb still there?
If the door is down and the limb is outside it, yes, the house is shut. If the limb is holding the door open or went through it, the garage stays open for the night and the door from the garage into the house is tonight’s lock. Close it, set the deadbolt if it has one, and do not try to prop or tie the garage door shut around the limb.
A garage that cannot be closed over the opening is the after-hours case the emergency repair page describes. An after-hours visit adds $149 to $249 to the repair, said on the phone first. If the tree crew cannot come until morning, the door pro’s visit goes with the lift, and a morning visit is priced like any other repair.
What does a garage door usually need after a limb hits it?
Usually less than a whole door, as long as the model is still made. The common damage is one creased or punctured section and the hinges on the top section. If the door was open when it hit, the horizontal track usually bent under it, and the opener rail often bends with the track.
One section is replaced on its own for $350 to $800 when the manufacturer still makes that door. A bent track is straightened or replaced by the section, and the door is squared and rebalanced afterward, the same work as bent track repair. The cables and springs get checked on the same visit, since they took the jolt along with the door. The page on what each repair costs here lists every one of them.
The older doors on the ranches break differently. A 1970s wood door cracks and splinters where the limb lands, often across more than one section, while a newer steel door creases and dents. A cracked wood section from a model nobody makes anymore cannot be matched, and the quote becomes a new garage door.
When it is time to call: emergency repair in Dunwoody when the door will not shut.