Garage Opener Houston (888) 217-5954

What broke

Garage door crooked or off track

One side lower than the other, a cable hanging loose, rollers out of the track. Why a crooked garage door should not be driven by the opener, and what fixes it.

Call (888) 217-5954 to schedule a visit

Calls may be recorded. Describing the problem commits you to nothing.

A garage door on a brick house stopped halfway and hanging crooked

A sectional door is lifted at its two bottom corners by steel cables and guided by rollers running in two tracks. If one cable lets go, that corner drops and the door tilts. If rollers leave a track, the door stops being guided and binds. Either way, the result looks the same from the driveway: a door hanging at an angle.

Cable or track?

  • A cable hangs slack beside a track, or has unwound from the grooved drum at the top: the door has lost lift on that side.
  • Rollers sit outside the track, often near the floor or where the track curves toward the ceiling, and the door gaps away from the frame.
  • A track is bent inward or has pulled off the wall, usually after a bump.

Often it is more than one. A door that dropped on one side can pull rollers out on the way down.

Why the opener must stay off

A crooked door driven by a motor twists harder into the tracks. The Consumer Product Safety Commission's advice covers it: "If doors are not 'balanced,' or if they bind or stick, they should be serviced by a professional" (CPSC Pub. 523).

The cables carry spring force down to the door's bottom brackets, which is why the counterbalance standard ANSI/DASMA 103 requires the fasteners on tensioned parts to be red. The federal text in every residential opener's manual puts cables in the same sentence as springs:

Have a qualified service person make repairs to cables, spring assemblies and other hardware.

— 16 CFR 1211.16(b)(2)

Until the visit

  1. Leave the opener off; unplug it if you can reach the plug without standing under the door.
  2. Keep everyone out from under the door.
  3. Do not wind a cable back on its drum or push rollers into the track.
  4. Photograph it before anything moves if a vehicle was involved.

The visit

The technician secures the door, puts it back in its tracks, replaces the cable, rollers, hinges or track sections that were damaged, and checks the springs, since a door that hung on one cable has put the whole load on the other side. The price is named after that inspection.

Updated 2026-09-30.

What you will be asked

  • Which side is lower, and whether a cable is hanging loose or off its drum.
  • Whether rollers are out of the track, and where: near the floor or at the curve.
  • What happened first: a bump, something in the way, or nothing you noticed.
  • Whether the door is up, down or stuck partway, and whether a car is inside.
  • Whether the springs look whole.
Call (888) 217-5954 to schedule a visit

The line takes repair, replacement and installation of garage doors and openers, for owners and renters, at homes and at commercial buildings. It is not for buying parts, doors on box trucks and trailers, or a price quoted over the phone without a visit. The price is named after someone has seen the door.

A garage door technician on a driveway pointing at the door hardware

Sources

Other problems

Call (888) 217-5954 to schedule a visit