Over Easter weekend, we found our 16 foot garage door suddenly wouldn’t close. As it went down, it would buckle and drop, putting more tension on the motor and causing it to reverse. We called several companies on Angie’s List with good ratings and, Tim, of Able Garage Door Service was the only company to call back over the weekend. He quickly set up an appointment to come to the house Monday morning to investigate and, hopefully, to fix the door.

He arrived on time and quickly diagnosed the problem—a cracked panel. We had feared it might be time to replace the door at a $900 to $1,500 cost, after all it is the house’s original garage door so it is 27 years old. He reassured us that he could repair it. He had the proper part on his truck—a 16 foot metal strut, which would keep the door from buckling and dropping at the site of the crack. He quickly did the repair, adjusted the springs, inspected and lubricated the rollers and tested everything to make sure all worked well.

He was generous with his time and took time to point out that two other panels in this door have cracks and he gave us useful information about what we might expect in the future with this old door, which is nearing the end of its functional life. He took the time to explain that garage door springs will, sooner or later, break and he showed us how to open the door after a break, so we can get our vehicles out until a repair can be done. He asked if there was anything else he could do before leaving and it occurred to one of us that we had not been able to successfully program the garage door button built into our Lexus SUV when we bought the house 2 1/2 years ago. He kindly offered to program it for us and quickly did so.

Over all, we were very pleased with his responsiveness, availability, punctuality, professionalism, skill, expertise, quality of customer service and surprisingly low charges for the repairs, with inspection and door servicing.