What Is on the Truck
Because median year built here runs around 1968, older than the broader service area's 1985 median, we carry cable sizes and drum styles that newer-build towns rarely need anymore - galvanized aircraft cable in the diameters that matched doors built before 1993 code updates, plus the older-style bottom brackets that those cables anchor to. We also carry the newer standard gauge cable for any door here that's been replaced since. You don't want a tech showing up with only the modern parts and discovering the drum on your door is a size nobody stocked past 1990.
What You Are Seeing
On a door this old, the first sign is usually a visible fray near where the cable wraps the bottom bracket, or a door that drifts to one side as it opens instead of tracking level. Sometimes the cable has already slipped off the drum and you'll hear a scraping or grinding noise instead of the usual roll. Cold snaps make this worse - this part of North Carolina sits in a moderate cold climate band, and cable and galvanizing on a decades-old door get brittle with repeated freeze-thaw cycles in a way a newer door's hardware doesn't. If the door suddenly feels heavier to lift by hand, or one side hangs lower when it's halfway up, that's a cable problem, not an opener problem.
How We Fix It
Both cables get replaced as a pair even if only one failed - on a door this age the other cable is the same vintage and close behind it. We unload spring tension safely, pull the old cable and drum assembly, check the bottom brackets for wear since those often corrode along with the cable on older doors, and reset the new cable with correct drum tension so the door travels level. We test it through a dozen full cycles before we call it done, watching for drift or binding that would point to a worn track rather than just the cable.
The Complications
Selma's housing stock skews older and median household income here runs lower than the wider service area, which matters for one honest reason: on a door built in the late 1960s, a cable failure is sometimes the first sign the whole door assembly - tracks, hinges, rollers - is past worth patching piece by piece. We'll always try the cheaper repair first, but if the bottom brackets are rusted through or the track is bent from years of use, replacing the cable alone just buys you a few more months before the next failure. We'll tell you straight if that's where your door is before we start, not after.
