We’ve got a 2-car garage, with old wooden doors, and only one door has an opener. The opener/door on one side shit the bed and we need to get it replaced. Naturally, this means both doors need to be replaced.
We called a guy in today to give us a quote for two new doors, two new openers, and a keypad entry system.
The total quote: $2900. My immediate thought is the guy is trying to job me. Is this price as out of line as I thought?
I don’t know if that’s worth it, but supposedly the (automated) garage doors are the most complicated and dangerous things in your house.
You’re talkng automated, right? Do they sell these things at Lowes? Where do you buy them if you got them yourself? That’s how I judge things, I see how much it would cost me to do it myself, and how much they charge.
Well, doing it myself isn’t an option. I’m the most un-handy person I know, and my wife is afraid of heights (even step ladders) so that’s a no-go.
Home Depot charges about $200 for an installed garage door opener. Based off what my wife said when she called me with the quote, the guy wanted to charge $400 each for them installed.
What I’m saying, Mark, is that here is how I’d go about it. Sorry if I wasn’t clear.
If the price you come up with is not crazily different than his price, go!
Off the top of my head, never having priced any of this stuff, the price doesn’t sound outrageous to me. Keep in mind my price tolerance for things like this is very low. Also, keep in mind I have no idea how much garage doors cost, which I’d assume is the big part here.
Doesn’t sound too off-base to me, Mark. When OLG and I moved into our current house, the spring on the garage door broke so we had to have it replaced. I think the cost for just the spring replacement was around $400. Add the cost of some nice wood doors, openers, keypads, and the labor to remove existing stuff and hang the new (that shit’s really heavy), and I’m not surprised you’re pushing $3k.
There are two different kinds of springs for garage doors (extension and torsion), and I think modern automatic openers all use torsion springs. They’re the kind that are tightly wrapped around a bar above the door, and my understanding is that self-installation of these things can be pretty dangerous. Definitely not a DIY job. I’d still get a couple different quotes though.
edit: also, garage door opener installation is the kind of job you want done right. When you start talking about really thick springs that are very tightly wound and raising doors that weight a couple hundred pounds up and down over you, your family, and your vehicles, it becomes apparent that there’s quite a bit of downside risk that comes along with nickel- and diming the job.
Check with Lowes and Home Depot. They sell both the doors and openers, and usually can install at least the openers. Since the electrical lines for the openers are already in place (on both sides I assume?) it should not cost a fortune to install these.
A plain white insulated steel no-windows 9’x7’ garage door (standard, one car) should run about $300-$400. A 1/2 HP opener (with keypad) for it should run around $200. So let’s assume $700 per side in materials (the extra bit is for stuff you don’t know you need, like extensions and whatnot). That’s $1400 for the parts.
Installation on openers is usually about $100 per, so assume $200 max in your case. I haven’t got a clue what installation on garage doors costs, but I’m guessing it’s a “per-hour” rate since time involved could vary widely from job to job. We were at $1600 roughly, your guy wanted $2900, so the $1300 difference was all labor for installing the doors and markup on the parts.
I’d call around some more.
I would also recommend getting another estimate from either Lowe’s or Home Depot. In my three years of working at the HD, I can not recall ever seeing a $3,000 garage door install, unless the panels were just high-end stuff. If you’re getting simple white panels with perhaps windows at the top or some such, that does seem a bit high.
Erik J.
It’s really two installs. We need both sides done.
We had our almost 10 year old garage door spring break in the last year. Definitely not something I wanted to try to fix, but it was only about $150 as I recall. I’d say the same thing for the door as a whole. It’s damn heavy - there may be no way possible to make it a one man job no matter how manly and skilled you are.
The automatic opener itself is pretty easy. In fact, just last week I had to largely redo it because the piece that attached the door to the chain broke. The new part was about $40 delivered (which seemed like a ripoff). I’ve also installed a wireless keypad for it, which was trivial. I don’t know what that part cost - my dad had gotten it for us - but I’d be shocked if it wasn’t well under $50.
I think I spent a little less than half that for a single door install a few years back. That included the tear down of an existing wall (previous owner had walled in the garage) as well as framing etc.
If you just called for a quote, he was most likely including a super high end door as well, to up his profit. Garage doors vary significantly in quality and design. From lightweight aluminum to heavy- duty reinforced steel and fiberglass.
You should demand cool steel blast doors that close in from each side to slam shut in the middle.
Pay him extra if he can have it make a “Duuuooonnnnnggg” sound when they meet.
The second guy came by today. 1800 for two insualated, windowless doors. The previous quote was for non-insulated doors.
Sounds much more resonable and closer to what actual parts and labor estimates would seem to hold true. I’d have guessed $2000, so that actually seems like a pretty good deal.
What, you’re not going to support the guy with the higher price? That other guy is probably from the future!
They’re taking our jeeaaabs.
They tukour jooobbss!
That sounds about right to me. I had the wood doors replaced at my old house, and it was slightly under 1500, so tacking your opener install seems to make it inline with that I paid. I went with metal doors because they last much longer than wooden ones, and are usually cheaper. They are also a hell of a lot lighter, which means you can use smaller springs. I don’t know if you thought about metal doors, but you could look into those if any of that interests you.
So, the funny thing about this thread getting bumped by a spammer is, I need garage doors installed on a different dwelling and forgot what I paid the first time.