What an Evanston alley does to your garage door
The City grades more than 300 unpaved alleys every spring. Here is what standing water, ruts and a settling slab actually do to the door at the end of your lot — and the right order to fix it in.
01 Garage door advice
Garage door advice, written in the driveway
These are the explanations we end up giving customers over and over, written down properly. No listicles, no filler, and nothing that applies equally well to Phoenix.
- Written by the technicians doing the work, not a content agency
- Evanston-specific where it matters — alleys, historic districts, winter
- Sourced to the City, NOAA, DASMA and the Census where we quote a number
- Nine long-form guides, updated as codes and conditions change
Fitting a modern door to a 1920s Evanston garage
Four in ten Evanston homes predate 1940, and their garages have eight-foot openings and almost no headroom. Here is how to measure yours properly, and what actually works when the ceiling is in the way.
Road salt and your garage door: a North Shore winter guide
There is no salt air on Lake Michigan — it is fresh water. The corrosion problem here is the 3,377 tons of road salt Evanston spreads each winter, and it arrives in your garage on your own tyres.
Garage door springs, explained — and why yours broke in January
The opener does not lift your garage door — the springs do, and the opener is only a positioning motor. Here is how springs are specified, why they are rated in cycles, and why yours chose the coldest morning of the year.
Do you need a permit — or historic review — for a garage door in Evanston?
Evanston has five National Register historic districts, four of them also local landmark districts, plus 850+ individual landmarks. The review rules cover anything visible from a public way — and the alley is a public way.
What North Shore villages actually allow: garage door width rules from Kenilworth to Winnetka
Winnetka caps an individual front-facing garage door at 9 feet. Kenilworth caps the sum of street-facing openings at 20 feet. Evanston caps neither but may review how the door looks. Here is every documented provision we could source, town by town.
Turning an Evanston garage into an ADU — what happens to the door
Evanston legalised ADUs in 2020, and garage conversions and above-garage units are both allowed. Nobody talks about what that does to the largest opening in the building — so here are the three scenarios and what each one needs.
Choosing a garage door opener for an old North Shore garage
Most opener guides assume a 2010 attached garage with nine-foot ceilings. Four in ten Evanston homes predate 1940 and park behind a detached garage with four inches of headroom. Here is how to choose for that one.
The twelve-point garage door safety check every homeowner should do twice a year
A garage door weighs between 130 and 400 pounds and almost nobody inspects it until it fails. Twelve things to look at, listen to and test — and the four that are always a call, not a fix.
Garage door stuck, loud, or off its tracks?
One call reaches the people who will actually be doing the work. Tell us what the door is doing and we will tell you straight what it needs — and when we can get a truck to you.