Your garage door just failed in Cranbourne: what to do in the first hour
Stop pressing the button. Switch the opener off at the wall or pull the plug so nobody else tries it. Look above the door for a gap in the coiled spring, and down each side for a lift cable hanging loose: if you see either, do not lift the door by hand and do not let anyone stand or park under it. Only pull the red emergency release cord when the door is fully closed, never when it is part way up. If a car is trapped inside, the release cord is your way out, and it takes two people to raise a double door safely. Then call us.
What your door is doing, what it means, and how fast it has to be fixed
Find the symptom, read the urgency column, then decide whether tonight is worth the after-hours premium. Prices are realistic 2026 Cranbourne figures including labour, and sit on top of the attendance fee unless stated.
| Symptom | What it usually means | How urgent | Typical cost to put right |
|---|---|---|---|
| Loud bang, then the door will not lift and the opener strains | Broken torsion spring. Look for a 50 to 100mm gap in the coil above the door. | Now if a car is trapped | $380 to $680 for a matched pair, $280 to $480 for one |
| Door hangs crooked, one side higher, a cable dangling | Snapped or jumped lift cable. The door can drop on the low side. | Now, stop using it | $180 to $280 per side, often with a spring |
| Door open, will not close, opener light flashing | Photo-electric safety sensors blocked or knocked out of alignment. | Now, the house is open | Free if you realign it, $120 to $180 if a sensor or its wire has failed |
| Door off its track or a buckled panel after a reversing bump | Bent track, distorted top section, sometimes a bent roller stem. | Now if it is unsupported | $280 to $580 track, $380 to $780 per colour-matched panel |
| Motor hums or runs but the door does not move | Stripped drive gear, broken carriage, or a snapped belt or chain. | This week | $180 to $420 for a gear and carriage kit, $580 to $1,200 for a new motor |
| Door slams the last 300mm instead of settling | Springs at end of life or badly out of balance. A serious crush risk. | Now, keep children clear | $380 to $680 spring pair plus a rebalance |
| Door reverses just before it touches the ground | Close force or travel limit has drifted, or a sensor beam is clipping the frame. | This week | Included in a $150 to $250 service, or free during another repair |
| Grinding, screeching or shuddering on the way up | Dry or collapsed rollers, worn bearing plates, grit in the tracks. | This week | $150 to $250 service, $180 to $380 for a full roller set |
| Nothing at all, no opener light, wall button dead | Tripped safety switch, failed power point, or a dead control board. | Check the switchboard first | $0 if it is the safety switch, $220 to $480 for a control board |
| Remote dead but the wall button still works | Flat remote battery, or a lost code after a power interruption. | Can wait | $8 battery, $65 to $95 for a replacement remote and pairing |
| Water running under the door across the slab | Perished bottom seal, or the slab has settled and the fall has reversed. | Can wait, but before winter | $120 to $220 for a new bottom seal, more if the threshold needs work |
Add the attendance fee: $120 to $180 Monday to Saturday in normal hours, $250 to $450 after hours, Sundays and public holidays. The full list is on our Cranbourne pricing page.
The four things that turn a cheap repair into an expensive one
1. Running the opener against a jammed door. Every extra press drives the motor into a door that is not going anywhere. On B&D, Merlin, Steel-Line and Centurion units the sacrificial part is a nylon drive gear or the trolley carriage, and once you have shredded it you have added $180 to $420 to a job that was $380. If the door has not moved after one attempt, isolate the power and leave it.
2. Pulling the release cord with the door half open. The release hands the door back to its own weight. With a healthy spring set that is fine. With a broken spring the door falls, and a double sectional at 80 to 180kg does not stop for a foot, a bike or a bonnet. Close the door first if the opener will still drive it, or leave it where it is and call.
3. Winding a torsion spring yourself. A double door spring holds the equivalent of a person’s body weight in stored energy across roughly seven turns of the shaft, and winding bars slip. This is the one repair on the whole door where the failure mode is a hospital trip, which is why we wrote the spring tension safety page. The part itself is $60 to $140. What you are paying for is the right bars, the right spring size for the door weight, and the balance test afterwards.
4. Levering a door back onto its track with a screwdriver. You will bend the track flange, and a bent flange means the roller jumps again within a fortnight. Straightening a section of track properly is $280 to $580, and it is cheaper than the panel you will crease trying to save it.
What you can safely do yourself
- Turn the power off at the wall switch or the power point. Always safe, always the first move.
- Clean the two safety sensor lenses and check the beam is clear and the brackets are square.
- Reset a tripped safety switch at the meter board once. If it trips again, leave it off and call an electrician.
- Change a remote battery and re-pair it with the learn button on the motor head.
- Sweep grit out of the bottom track. Sandy Cranbourne soil packed into a track is a real cause of jamming.
- Photograph everything before anything is touched if there is any chance of an insurance claim.
What is genuinely dangerous
- Any work on torsion or extension springs, the lift cables, or the drums the cables wind onto.
- Standing under a door held up by anything other than a healthy spring set.
- Disconnecting or taping over the safety sensors so the door will close. That defeats the obstruction protection AS/NZS 4505 expects on a powered door.
- Cutting into the opener wiring or the circuit that feeds it. Fixed wiring is licensed electrical work in Victoria and needs a Certificate of Electrical Safety.
Not sure whether it can wait? Ring and describe it.
Phone triage is free. We will tell you straight whether it is a tonight job or a Tuesday job.
After-hours call-out versus waiting until Monday
The parts do not change price at 9pm. A torsion spring pair is $380 to $680 on a Tuesday morning and $380 to $680 on a Saturday night. What changes is attendance: $120 to $180 in normal hours against $250 to $450 after hours, Sundays and public holidays. So the decision is worth about $150 to $250 to you, and it comes down to three questions.
Is the house insecure? A door stuck open, or a door that will not seat down onto the slab, is worth paying the premium for. In a lot of Casey floorplans an open garage is an open internal access door into the house, and no home insurer looks kindly on an unsecured opening left overnight. If the right part cannot be had until morning we will still come out and make it safe: close the door manually and physically secure it so you can sleep.
Is a vehicle you need trapped? If you can get the car out using the release cord with two people, or take the other car, wait. If a work ute is locked in and Monday morning is a job site, pay the premium and stop thinking about it.
Is anything at risk of falling? A door hanging on one cable, a door that slams the last 300mm, or a panel that has come off its rollers is a crush hazard. Isolate the power, keep everyone out of the opening, and get it done. That one is not about convenience.
When it is not an emergency, and waiting saves you real money
A flat remote is not an emergency. A noisy door is not an emergency. A door that opens and closes fine but reverses 50mm early is not an emergency. Neither is a bottom seal letting water across the slab, though it is worth booking before the June and July rain: that one is covered on our water leak and weather sealing page. A dead motor on a door you can still release and lift by hand can wait for a normal appointment, and waiting also lets you compare a like-for-like swap against a quieter belt-drive upgrade instead of buying whatever happens to be on the truck at 10pm. That comparison is set out on the motor swap page.
We would rather book you for Tuesday at 8am and leave the $250 in your pocket. It is a better job too: in daylight the door can be properly cycle-tested and rebalanced, which is hard to do well under a torch.
What an emergency call-out in Casey actually involves
We ask four questions on the phone: what the door did, whether you can see a gap in the spring, whether a cable is hanging, and what brand is on the motor head. That is usually enough to know which parts to load. Common torsion springs, lift cables, roller sets, sensor pairs and the popular gear kits ride on the truck, which is why most emergency jobs across Cranbourne, Berwick, Narre Warren and Hampton Park finish in one visit inside 90 minutes.
On arrival the door is isolated, both springs are inspected, and the door is balance tested by hand at waist height with the opener disconnected. A correctly balanced door stays where you put it. If it drifts up or sags down, the spring set is wrong for the door weight, and simply fitting the same size again would have you back here in two years. Before we leave, the auto-reverse is tested against a solid obstruction, the sensors are re-aimed, the manual release is demonstrated, and the door is run through a full cycle. All of that is the AS/NZS 4505 safety expectation for a powered door, not an optional extra.
What we do not do is sell you a new door at 10pm. If your door is 18 years old with rust through the bottom section and the spring has gone, we will fix the spring so you have a working door tonight, then quote the replacement properly in daylight. If replacing really is the better spend, the numbers are laid out on the replacement cost page so you can check us. And if the door is fine and it is only the opener, we say that too.
Once the emergency is over, the thing that prevents the next one is a 12-monthly service. The failure pattern across the Casey growth corridor is boringly consistent: builder-grade springs rated to around 10,000 cycles, a family opening the door four to six times a day, and a snap at the seven to ten year mark. Our maintenance schedule sets out what to check and when.
Tell us what the door is doing and we will call you back
Send this and we will ring you back the same business day, triage it on the phone and give you a real number before anyone gets in a van.
Emergency questions we get asked at 8pm
Is a broken garage door spring actually an emergency?
Can I lift the door by hand once the spring has broken?
What does an after-hours garage door call-out cost in Cranbourne?
The door will not close and the opener light is flashing. Is that urgent?
I reversed into the door and it is off its track. What should I do first?
How fast can you get to Cranbourne, Berwick or Narre Warren?
Storm, break-in or vehicle-impact damage may be claimable, so before you book the repair read what home insurance covers on a garage door in Victoria. If the property is tenanted the timeframes are different again: see the landlord and property manager page.