Garage Door Cable Repair and Replacement Greater Boston & Surrounding Areas

Yes. Do not use the door. With one cable broken, the door is being held up by only the other cable and the springs. The remaining cable is now carrying double the load and may snap next. If both cables break, the door can fall fast. If you must move the door (say your car is trapped inside), call us first. We can often talk you through a safe temporary brace, or we can be there inside two hours in our core area. Cable replacement is one of the more affordable repairs, usually $180 to $300 for both cables.

A standard pair of galvanized cables installed runs $180 to $300, including labor. Stainless steel cables run about $250 to $400 installed. If the cables came off because the door is out of balance or the springs are worn, we may recommend addressing those at the same time so the new cables don't fail early. We give you the full price before we start and we don't upsell.

About 45 minutes to an hour for a standard residential door. We safely release spring tension, remove the old cables, install new cables, re-tension the springs, and run the door through five or six full cycles to make sure everything is balanced and tracking straight. We don't leave until the door operates smoothly with the opener.

We strongly recommend against it. The bottom brackets of the door are under spring tension even when the door is closed. Unbolting a bottom bracket without releasing tension first can launch the bracket like a bullet. People lose fingers and break bones doing this. The cable itself is not expensive. The cost of a professional cable replacement is mostly labor and safety. If you absolutely insist on doing it yourself, at minimum lock the door open with vise grips on both tracks above the bottom rollers before touching anything.

Three common reasons. First, the door is out of balance because a spring is going (one side gets stronger than the other and the cable on the weaker side slacks). Second, the cable broke or rusted at the bottom bracket and slipped out. Third, the door was forced open or closed manually with the opener still engaged, which can yank a cable off the drum. Fixing only the cable without addressing the underlying cause means you will see us again in a few months. We diagnose root cause as part of the visit.

Yes. We stock standard cable sizes (1/8 inch, 5/32 inch, 3/16 inch) in lengths up to 14 feet, which covers almost every residential door in New England, including older 1970s and 1980s homes throughout Arlington, Belmont, Medford, and Watertown. For unusual setups like 8-foot-tall doors or double-track commercial doors, we can usually get the exact spec within 24 hours.

It might, but probably not by itself. If the door is crooked, the underlying cause is usually a worn spring or an out-of-balance setup. We replace the cables, then check spring tension, drum alignment, and track alignment. If we fix only the cable, the new cable will wear unevenly and you'll be calling us back in three months. We address it all in one visit.

Grinding is usually one of three things: cable strands rubbing against the drum because of misalignment, worn-out rollers grinding on the track, or a failing opener gear. Cable-related grinding usually happens at the top of the door travel and sounds like metal-on-metal scraping. Rollers grind throughout the travel and sound more like a tractor. Opener gear failure usually comes with the door not moving at all eventually. We can diagnose which one in about five minutes when we arrive.