Garage door installation day in Cranbourne, hour by hour: what happens and what you need to do
A single garage door swap takes 3 to 5 hours and a double takes 5 to 7, start to finish, in one visit with two installers on site. We arrive between 7:00 and 8:30, the old door is off inside 90 minutes, and the longest single stage is hanging the tracks and panels. You need the driveway clear, a working 10 amp power point within about 1.5 metres of the motor head, and everything within 2 metres of the opening moved. The two things that turn one day into two are an out-of-plumb jamb and no power at the ceiling.
Every stage, how long it takes and what is expected of you
Times below are for a standard double opening around 4,800mm by 2,100mm in Cranbourne, Berwick, Narre Warren, Hampton Park or Endeavour Hills, with two installers on site. A single opening runs roughly 60 to 70 per cent of these times. Costs for each part of the job are on the pricing page.
| Stage | How long | What happens | What you need to do |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Phone triage | 10 minutes, on the phone | We work out door type, rough size, whether the opener is coming too, and give an indicative range before anyone drives anywhere. | Have the door brand and rough age handy. The sticker is usually inside the top panel or on the motor head. |
| 2. On-site measure | 30 to 45 minutes, free | Opening width and height in three places each, headroom, side room, backroom, jamb plumb, lintel condition, driveway fall and where the power point is. | Be there, and clear enough space for a tape measure and a ladder. Decide roughly on colour. |
| 3. Quote and order | Quote in 48 hours, then 5 to 10 business days for a stock door, 3 to 5 weeks non-stock | Fixed written quote, then the door is ordered and a fitting date is locked in. | Read the quote against the checklist below, approve in writing, and check your estate covenant if the colour is unusual. |
| 4. Arrival and set-up | 15 to 20 minutes | Van and trailer park on the driveway, drop sheets down, tools out, the door delivered off the trailer and laid flat. | Driveway completely clear, both cars out on the street or around the corner. Dogs inside. |
| 5. Old door out | 45 to 90 minutes | Springs de-tensioned first, then the curtain or panels come down, then tracks and brackets. This is the loud stage if the brackets are rusted or dynabolted. | Stay out of the garage. The opening is unguarded and old counterbalance hardware is under load until it is released. |
| 6. Opening prep | 30 to 60 minutes, sometimes longer | Jambs checked for plumb and packed, rust or rot at the fixing points dealt with, lintel checked, old anchor holes made good. This is the stage that stalls jobs. | Nothing, but expect a conversation if the jamb has moved more than about 15mm or the timber is soft. |
| 7. Tracks and door in | 90 minutes single, 2 to 3 hours double | Vertical and horizontal tracks fixed and aligned, panels stacked and hinged, or the curtain and barrel lifted into brackets. Longest stage of the day. | Keep kids and pets out. Panels are handled at height and a gust through the opening moves them. |
| 8. Springs and balance | 30 to 45 minutes | Torsion springs wound to the calculated turns, then the door is balance-tested by hand at three heights so it stays put wherever you leave it. | Nothing. Nobody should be inside the opening during winding. |
| 9. Opener and safety | 60 to 90 minutes | Rail and motor head hung off the joists, arm connected, photoelectric safety beams set at 150 to 200mm above the slab, wall control run, limits and force set. | Make sure there is a working 10 amp power point within about 1.5 metres of the motor head. If not, this stage stops. |
| 10. Test and handover | 30 to 45 minutes | The door is cycled about 30 times, auto-reverse tested against an obstruction, beams broken and re-tested, remotes and keypad coded, app paired, manual release demonstrated. | Be present. Watch the safety reverse yourself and practise the manual release once with your own hands. |
| 11. Clean-up and waste | 20 to 30 minutes | Magnet sweep of the driveway and slab for swarf and screws, offcuts and packaging bagged, old door and hardware loaded, invoice and warranty issued. | Walk the driveway with us before we leave and check the slab where the old door sat. |
Two installers, one visit. Same-day emergency repairs are a different job entirely and usually take 60 to 90 minutes. Call (03) 9003 0250.
Your prepare-for-the-crew checklist
Tick these off and the job runs on time. Your ticks are saved on this device, so you can come back to the list, and the print button gives you a clean copy for the fridge.
The week before
The night before
On the morning
Before the crew leaves
Stop and call us if you see this on the day
Want a date in the diary?
Free measure within 48 hours across the inner Casey ring, then a fixed written quote and a fitting date you can plan around.
The practical details nobody tells you
Access and parking
We need the driveway for the van and the trailer, plus about six metres of kerb in front of the house. In the newer courts around Cranbourne East and Clyde-side, where the road narrows and cars are parked on both sides, that is the number one cause of a slow start. If your street is tight, park both of your cars a few doors up the night before rather than the morning of. Panels are carried in flat, so we also need a clear path from the trailer to the opening at least a metre wide.
Power and water
The crew runs off your power for a battery charger and occasionally a grinder, so a working outdoor or garage power point is needed. More importantly the opener needs its own 10 amp general power outlet within about 1.5 metres of where the motor head hangs. If there is not one, that is a separate job for a licensed electrician, who has to issue a Certificate of Electrical Safety for the new circuit under Victorian electrical safety law. We do not do electrical work and we will not run an extension lead across the ceiling as a workaround. No water is needed at any point.
Noise, dust and smell
Loud in bursts rather than loud all day. An impact driver runs on and off through most of the job. An angle grinder comes out for one or two minutes at a time when rusted brackets or old dynabolts have to be cut, and that is the noise you will hear through the whole house. Winding springs is almost silent. There is no wet trade, no cutting of masonry unless a new anchor is needed, and no smell beyond a little cutting oil and the odd whiff of hot metal. The one genuine mess is fine steel swarf from cutting track, which rusts if it lands on a car bonnet or sits on a wet slab.
Pets, kids and working from home
The opening is unguarded from the moment the old door comes off until the new one is balanced, which is most of the day. A double sectional weighs 75 to 160kg and a roller curtain 55 to 80kg, and both are handled at height. Dogs and cats need to be behind a closed internal door, not just in the backyard, because the side gate gets used. Kids can watch from the front lawn but not from inside the garage. Working from home is genuinely fine in a front room, and most people take their calls between the noisy bursts, but do not book anything critical for the hour the old door comes off.
What has to be moved
Everything within two metres of the inside of the opening, across the full width. Everything hanging on the walls either side, because the vertical tracks need clear wall from the slab to the head. And everything on the ceiling along the door’s travel line, which runs back from the opening by the door height plus about 800mm: that is the door height in your case, plus the rail and the motor head. The item that catches people out in Casey is the ceiling storage platform or the roof-rack hoist. If it is over the track line it has to come down, and it is much cheaper for you to do that than for us to.
Weather
Wind stops more Melbourne jobs than rain does. A 2.4 metre panel going into a track is a sail, and a gusty northerly above about 40km/h makes that unsafe to handle at height, so panel work waits until it eases. Steady rain driving straight into the opening stops track fixing, because chemical anchors need a dry hole to cure properly. Light rain on a sheltered opening is a non-event. If the forecast is going to move your booking we call by 6:30am, not at 9 when we were due.
What a clean site looks like at the end
A magnet run over the driveway and the slab, no swarf in the joints of the pavers, no screws or offcuts, packaging bagged and gone, no cardboard in your bin unless you asked for it. Drop sheets picked up. The slab where the old door sat swept, because there is usually a line of grit under an old bottom seal. Remotes labelled and working. The manual release cord at a height you can reach. Your tax invoice with the ABN, the written workmanship warranty and the manufacturer paperwork handed over, not emailed next week.
Where the waste goes
The old door goes on the trailer. Steel curtains, panels, tracks, brackets, springs and cables are all scrap steel and go to a metal recycler, which is also why the disposal fee is modest at $180 to $380. The old motor head is e-waste, and e-waste is banned from landfill in Victoria, so it goes to a resource recovery centre rather than the tip face. Packaging cardboard and plastic strapping are recycled. The only part with no good local stream is the expanded polystyrene core in some older insulated panels, which we are straight about. Nothing is left on your nature strip.
When this whole day is the wrong job
If the panels are straight and the door is under about ten years old, and the only real complaint is that it is noisy, slow or ignoring the remote, you do not need an installation day. That is a 60 to 90 minute repair or a 90 minute motor swap, and it costs $250 to $1,400 rather than thousands. Start at why the door will not open or book a service.
There are also two things we will not do on the day, and it is better you know now. We do not carry out electrical work: if a new outlet is needed, a licensed electrician does it and issues the certificate. And we do not rebuild structure. We will pack and re-plumb a jamb that has moved, but a rotted timber frame, a cracked lintel or a widened opening is a carpenter or builder job with a building permit attached, and we will stop and tell you rather than fit a door to something that is not sound. The local trades list is the place to start for that.
If you are still choosing, the two decisions that come before booking a date are on choosing a garage door material and the budget page. Full service detail is on garage door installation.
Installation day questions
How long does a garage door installation take in Cranbourne?
What do I need to move before the crew arrives?
How noisy and messy is a garage door install?
Do I need to be home for the whole installation?
What happens to my old garage door?
Will weather delay my garage door installation?
Book the measure and get a fitting date
Send your details and we will call within one business day to book a free measure, then confirm a fitting date and a fixed price in writing.
One visit, one crew, one clean driveway
Installations across Cranbourne, Berwick, Narre Warren, Hampton Park and Endeavour Hills. Old door removed and recycled as part of the job.