Florissant, MO · Garage Door Service
Garage door repair for Hazelwood, MO homes built mostly in the early 1970s. We travel 4 miles from Florissant to fix springs, openers, and tracks on this era's hardware.
Most houses in Hazelwood went up around 1970, which puts a lot of doors on the tail end of the extension-spring era, right before torsion setups became standard on new construction. That matters because the fix depends on which hardware showed up on your house. If you're in one of the earlier sections built closer to the late 1960s, you may still have the original side-mounted extension springs with a separation cable running along each track - a system that's been out of production for parts long enough that we're often adapting a modern equivalent rather than swapping in an exact match. Newer torsion setups from the later part of that build wave are more straightforward: the drum, cable, and spring are usually still available in the size the door needs.
The other thing 1970-era doors share is weight. Steel sectional doors from that period tend to run heavier per panel than what's sold today, so a spring that's undersized for the door - which happens more than you'd think after a mismatched replacement years back - shows up as a door that won't stay open on its own or an opener straining on every cycle. We check the spring size against the door weight before we touch anything, not after.
A straight spring or cable replacement on a Hazelwood house is usually a same-visit job once we're on site - we bring the common sizes for this era's doors on the truck. Where it runs longer is when the track or hardware has been modified from the original, which we see on some of these 1970-built houses after 50-plus years of ownership changes and prior repairs that didn't match the factory spec. In that case we may need to source a part that isn't standard stock, and that's a return visit, not a same-day fix.
We're coming from Florissant, about 4 miles out, so travel isn't the variable - the variable is what's actually on your door once we open the panel up.
Tell us the door's approximate age when you call - if you know roughly when the house was built, that alone tells us a lot about what we're likely dealing with before the truck leaves Florissant. A description of the noise or the way the door is failing (won't open, opens partway, opener grinds, cable hanging loose) helps us load the right spring size and cable length rather than guessing on site.
We don't keep a branch or drop point in Hazelwood itself; every job here is scheduled out of Florissant, 4 miles away. That's not a limitation on the work, just on how the visit gets arranged.
Some things are fine to check yourself. Look at the cable where it wraps the drum - fraying or a visible kink is a warning sign, not a fix-it-yourself repair. Check that the track bolts haven't worked loose, since houses of this vintage have had 50-plus years for fasteners to shift. What you shouldn't touch is the spring itself. A wound torsion or extension spring under load can cause a serious injury if it lets go while you're working on it, and we won't talk anyone through that step over the phone.
If the door is original to a 1970-built house and the opener is a later add-on, mismatched wiring or a bracket that was never meant for that motor is common enough that we check it as a matter of course, not as an upsell.
Given the age spread in Hazelwood, we carry both extension and torsion spring stock sized for early-1970s steel sectional doors, along with the drums, cables, and rollers that tend to fail on hardware that old. We also carry the smaller opener parts - drive gears, safety sensors, remote boards - since a lot of these houses added an opener as a retrofit rather than at construction, and retrofit brackets wear differently than factory-installed ones.
What we don't stock is anything custom-milled to a discontinued door profile. If a panel or track section was a one-off from a manufacturer that's no longer in business, we'll tell you that on site rather than promise a part we can't get.
The failure we see most in this age of house is a spring that's been replaced once already with the wrong weight rating, so the door either won't hold itself open or slams down faster than it should. The second is cable wear on doors that still have the original extension-spring track, since that hardware has had decades to fatigue with no scheduled replacement built into it.
Winters here bring real cold, and cold makes old lubrication stiff and old rubber seals crack, which shows up as a door that's harder to lift on a January morning than it was in July. It's not a different problem, just an older one made worse by temperature. If a repair would cost close to what a new door runs, we'll say so instead of patching something that's going to fail again in a year.
About 4 miles. We don't keep a separate location in Hazelwood; every job here is scheduled and run out of Florissant, so the distance factors into scheduling but not into the repair itself.
It's right at the point where extension-spring side-mount hardware was starting to give way to torsion setups. Which one you have depends on exactly when your section of Hazelwood was built and whether the door's been replaced since. We check on site rather than assume.
We carry spring and cable sizes common to early-1970s steel sectional doors, along with standard opener parts. What we can't always get is a custom panel or track piece from a manufacturer no longer in business - we'll tell you upfront if that's the case.
Depends on the door's condition beyond the spring. If the panels and track are sound, a spring or cable fix makes sense. If the repair cost is getting close to a full door replacement, we'll tell you that instead of running up a bill on a door that's near the end anyway.
Call now or request a free quote - same-day service on most repairs, upfront written pricing.
