Pre-Purchase Door Inspection

One Component, Looked At Properly

This is the inspection that gets ordered during a contingency period, usually a day or two after the general home inspection has produced a line that reads something like “garage door operational, reversal tested”. That line is accurate. It is also the entirety of what anyone knows about the largest moving object on the property.

We look at the door on its own for an hour, and you get the findings in writing.

What Actually Gets Checked

Springs. Type, apparent age, and whether the cycle rating matches how the house was used. A standard torsion spring is rated around ten thousand cycles. A household opening the door four times a day burns that in roughly seven years. On a twenty year old house with original springs, the question is not whether they need replacing but when, and that belongs in a report.

Cables and drums. Both cables along their length, and where they wind onto the drum. In this city the relevant failure is salt corrosion starting inside the strand, so the tell is rust weeping out from between the strands rather than obvious fraying. We also check whether the drums are timed together, because a door lifting with a permanent twist wears continuously.

Entrapment protection. UL 325 requires a working secondary system, which on a residential opener means the photo eyes. We confirm the beam breaks correctly at the right height and that the eyes have not been unclipped and aimed at each other on the ceiling to stop nuisance reversals. That is a defeated safety device and it is worth writing down.

Opener age and battery backup. California has required battery backup on residential openers installed since July 2019. An opener without it is not illegal to own, but it dates the installation and tells you what else is likely original.

Structure and hardware. Reinforcement bracket on any door with an opener attached, hinge condition, bottom fixtures, track alignment, and the balance test with the opener disconnected. A door that will not hold at waist height on its own is not balanced, whatever the opener manages to do with it.

The Report

Component by component, photographed, with a condition and a cost band on anything that needs attention. Items are separated into safety, imminent and eventual, because those are three different conversations at the negotiating table.

We price the repairs whether or not we do them. A report written to generate work is worth nothing to a buyer.

Sellers Order the Same Inspection Earlier

The pre-listing version is identical work at a better moment. You find what the buyer’s inspector will find while you still control the timing, and you fix it or disclose it on your terms rather than inside a five day response window.

Call Autostem at (562) 819-5299 and give us your deadline.