Old Spring City homes and their garages
Waukesha was settled in 1834 along the Fox River. In the late 1800s its mineral springs made it a national resort, earning it the nicknames Spring City and Saratoga of the West. Visitors came from across the country, and the city had more than 60 springs.
The neighborhoods that grew up around downtown in that era hold older homes with garages that were added after the fact. They're often detached, set behind the house and sized for one car. Framing may have been patched, slabs may have settled, and openings may not match standard door sizes.
Those garages need a careful look before a new door goes in. We measure the opening, headroom and side room, and check the jambs and header for rot. Low-headroom track can help on short garages. Our garage door installation team for the Milwaukee area can order a door that fits.
Newer subdivisions on Waukesha's edges
Waukesha has also grown outward. Newer subdivisions at a range of price points have filled in on the city's outskirts, along with condominiums and apartment buildings throughout the area.
Homes in these neighborhoods usually have attached two- or three-car garages with insulated steel doors, torsion springs and belt- or chain-drive openers. The common problems are springs reaching the end of their cycles, openers with failing logic boards or sensors, and photo eyes knocked out of line.
Before calling, check the photo eyes, the lock button on the wall control and the remote batteries. If those are fine, our opener repair service in the Milwaukee area can test the motor, gears and safety reverse.
Garage doors for Waukesha's manufacturers
Waukesha is an industrial city as well as a suburb. Generac, which makes backup generators for homes and businesses, is headquartered here. GE built a factory in Waukesha in the early 1970s and invested heavily in a magnetic resonance imaging plant here in the 1980s, and the city has many smaller manufacturers and suppliers.
Manufacturing and warehouse buildings depend on overhead doors and rolling steel doors that cycle many times a day. A stuck door can halt shipping or leave a building open. Springs, cables, rollers, sections and operators all wear out faster under that kind of use.
We repair and install commercial sectional and rolling steel doors and service their operators. See our commercial garage door repair page for the full list.
What does a Waukesha winter do to a garage door?
Southeastern Wisconsin winters are long. In the Milwaukee area, January averages a high around 28°F and a low around 16°F, with close to 49 inches of snow in a normal season. Waukesha is about 16 miles inland from Lake Michigan, so it gets little of the lake-effect snow that occasionally hits the shore.
Cold is the main problem. Springs are more likely to break in a deep freeze. Grease thickens, slowing the door and straining the opener. Rubber bottom seals harden and crack. Road salt from the main roads rides in on tires and rusts the bottom section, brackets and cable ends.
If you hear a loud bang from the garage and the door won't lift, a spring has probably broken. Don't keep pressing the button. Call for broken spring repair.
Is it time for a new garage door?
For many Waukesha homes, it's a fair question. Doors on older detached garages may be heavy wood or thin uninsulated steel. Doors on 1990s and 2000s subdivisions may be original builder-grade doors with dented sections and worn hardware.
Repair makes sense when the sections are sound and parts are available. Replacement makes sense when sections are cracked or rotted, the door keeps coming off track, or you want insulation on an attached garage. We'll tell you honestly which side your door is on and what affects the price of each option.
On older downtown garages, a new door often means some framing work first, so plan for that. On subdivision homes, a replacement is usually a straight swap in the same opening, and it's a good moment to add an insulated door and a quieter opener.
How do you open a garage door when the power goes out?
Winter storms can knock out power in Waukesha County, and the city is home to Generac, the generator maker, so plenty of local homes have backup power. Many don't, though, and a garage door with no power is a common worry.
Most openers have an emergency release, usually a red cord hanging from the opener's trolley. Pulling it disconnects the door from the opener so you can lift the door by hand. Use it only when the door is closed and the springs are intact. If a spring is broken, the door is far heavier than it looks, and releasing it while it's open can let it slam shut. Never stand under a door you've released.
A balanced door lifts easily by hand. If yours is hard to lift, the springs need service, and that's a job for a technician.
When power returns, the trolley usually reconnects the next time you run the opener. If it doesn't, check the manual for your model.
A battery backup avoids most of this. Many newer openers support one, and it keeps the door running for a number of cycles during an outage. Some older openers can't take a backup, which is one reason people replace them.
If you have a home generator, ask your electrician whether the garage circuit is on it.
Waukesha is part of the Milwaukee area we serve, along with Pewaukee, Brookfield, New Berlin and Sussex. Calls to the main line go to the closest available technician.
