Pick the decade your garage was built and what kind of garage it is. You get the three problems I find most often in that garage, what I do about each, 2026 prices from my cost calculator, and the guide for your city. It takes ten seconds and nothing is collected.

When was the garage built? 1920s to 1930s 1940s to 1950s 1960s to 1970s 1980s to 1990s 2000s to 2010s 2020 or newer

Not sure? The garage is usually the same age as the house, or a 1990s-2000s rebuild of the original.

What kind of garage? Detached (stands apart from the house, often on the alley) Attached (shares a wall with the house) Tuck-under (under the living space, at the bottom of a sloped driveway)

Prices are the ranges on my cost calculator: spring replacement $150 to $350 single door (code SPRINGS waives the service call and includes cables), cables $200 to $300, off-track repair from $450, panel $200 to $600 per section, opener repair $75 to $200, new LiftMaster myQ opener $650 to $1,500 installed, new insulated door from $2,000 ($2,800 for a 2-inch sandwich door), $129 winter tune-up with code WINTER through Dec 15, 2026. Every job gets a written price before work starts. Family-owned, St. Louis Park, about an hour away. (763) 265-7671.

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Why the age of the garage tells me what is wrong

After enough garages in Edina, Richfield, St. Louis Park, Minneapolis and St. Paul, the pattern is simple: the decade the garage was built decides the opening size, the headroom, the kind of door that was hung, and how many Minnesota winters of road salt the bottom of that door has stood in. A 1920s Country Club garage has an odd-size opening and a wood door; a 1950s Richfield garage has 7 inches of headroom and soft jambs; a 1960s split-level has the door under a bedroom; a 1990s west-metro house has a 16-foot door with no strut; a 2000s house is on its first spring failure. This tool gives you my short list for your garage before you call, so you know what to expect and what it costs. It is not a diagnosis; the diagnosis happens in your garage, with the door in my hands, and the written price comes before any work.

All the era and city guides

25 seconds: the four parts that fail in the first Minnesota freeze. More on YouTube.

Garage Door Age Check: What Your Garage’s Decade Says About Its Door

Why the age of the garage tells me what is wrong

All the era and city guides