Can you change the look of your garage door in Shaker Heights?
Not without review. Shaker's Architectural Board of Review, made up of architects who live in the city, looks at exterior changes to homes. Its published guidelines allow replacement doors that match the size, style, color and appearance of the existing ones to be reviewed by Planning Department staff. A door that changes any of those may need to go before the board.
The guidelines also say detached garages should be roofed and sided to match the main house, with a roof pitch that relates to the house. So a new garage door is judged as part of the whole property, not on its own.
In practice, that means picking a door style, color and window pattern that suits the house, then checking with the Planning Department before you order. We can measure the opening and give you the door details the city will want to see. Our garage door installation page covers materials and styles.
What the point-of-sale inspection checks in your garage
Shaker Heights requires sellers to get an interior and exterior inspection of the house and garage, plus the yard, before entering a sales contract. The certificate is good for 24 months. If violations aren't fixed, the buyer must place 150% of the estimated repair cost in escrow with the city, and that estimate has to be itemized and come from a contractor registered with the city.
The city's homeowner maintenance guide asks owners to check whether the garage door sticks in its track or is hard to open, and whether the garage needs new paint or a new roof. The city also notes that snow can keep inspectors from seeing roofs and driveways in winter, so timing matters.
If you're planning to sell, have the garage door looked at before you apply. A balanced door that runs smoothly and reverses properly is one less line on the report.
Inspections don't stop after you buy
Shaker inspects homes on a schedule, not just at sale. The city says owner-occupied homes get a systematic exterior inspection every five years, and rental properties get an interior and exterior inspection every three years.
That makes ongoing upkeep worth it. A door that drags, has slipped off its track or has a cracked panel is easier to fix on your own schedule than after a notice arrives. If a door has jumped its track, stop using it and see our off-track garage door repair page, since forcing it can bend the track further.
Garages behind a Van Sweringen home
The Van Sweringen brothers began planning Shaker Heights as a garden suburb in 1905. It became a village in 1911 and a city in 1931, and it grew from about 1,700 people in 1920 to a peak of 36,306 in 1970. About three-quarters of the city is on the National Register of Historic Places.
From the start, the company used tight architectural guidelines and deed restrictions. Its early-1920s demonstration homes on streets like Parkland Drive and South Woodland were built with two-car garages, and garages across most of the older neighborhoods sit behind the house at the end of a driveway.
Those garages are now about a century old. Expect openings that aren't today's stock sizes, wood jambs softened by decades of snowmelt, and limited headroom. A replacement door is often made to fit the opening rather than pulled off a shelf.
Openers for a detached garage at the end of a long drive
A detached garage set well back from the street is far from the house's wiring and Wi-Fi. Older garages may have a single outlet on an old circuit, which can limit what opener makes sense. Any new wiring is a job for an electrician.
Once power is in place, the door must be balanced before an opener is added. Then you can choose a belt-drive opener for quieter operation, a wall-mount opener where headroom is tight, a keypad at the door, or a battery backup for east-side storm outages. See garage door opener installation for the options.
If you're weighing a new door at the same time, our post on garage door materials compares wood, steel and composite for a cold, snowy climate.
Neighborhoods we cover in Shaker Heights
Shaker's nine neighborhoods take their names from its original elementary schools: Boulevard, Fernway, Lomond, Ludlow, Malvern, Mercer, Moreland, Onaway and Sussex. The Blue and Green rapid transit lines that opened in 1920 run along Shaker Boulevard and Van Aken Boulevard.
We serve all of them as part of the Cleveland area we serve, along with Cleveland Heights, University Heights and Beachwood. When you call, tell us if the garage is detached, what the door is doing, and if an inspection or a sale is coming up.
