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Residential & commercial doors
Garage Door Technician
High service call rates, and springs that can genuinely kill you.
Typical pay
$40k-$85k
How you get in
Employer training, 4-12 weeks
Outlook
Steady; a service niche with little competition for workers
Garage door technicians install and repair doors and openers. Service call margins are excellent and the work is mostly solo, but torsion springs store enough energy to be lethal if handled wrong.
A day in the life
- 7:30aLoad springs, rollers and openers, check the route
- 8:30aFirst call — broken torsion spring replacement
- 10:30aOpener install and safety sensor alignment
- 12:30pLunch in the truck
- 1:30pFull door installation on a new build
- 4:30pEmergency call — door off track, car trapped inside
How to get in
Employer training
Duration
4-12 weeks
Cost
$0 — paid training
Credential
IDEA certification is optional but respected
- Get hired by a garage door company with no experience
- Ride along until spring work is second nature — this is the part that hurts people
- Learn openers, tracks, cables and commercial operators
- Take an IDEA certification to formalize the skill
From an adjacent trade
Duration
2-8 weeks
Cost
$0
Credential
None
- Come from construction, handyman or mechanical work
- Learn the door-specific mechanics quickly
- Your existing tool sense and customer skills transfer directly
- Commercial and rolling steel door work pays more
Independent service business
Duration
2-4 years of experience first
Cost
$15,000-$50,000 for truck, stock and insurance
Credential
Business license and liability insurance
- Learn on someone else's trucks until spring work is routine
- Buy a van and stock the common springs, rollers and openers
- Register and insure the business
- Service calls and spring replacements carry very strong margins
What people love
- · High service call and repair margins
- · Trained in weeks with no schooling
- · Mostly solo work in your own truck
- · Very achievable to go independent
What wears people down
- · Torsion springs are genuinely dangerous
- · Heavy lifting of door sections
- · On-call for people trapped in or out of garages
- · Weather exposure at every job