Residential · 24 hours a day, every day
24/7 Emergency Garage Door Repair
A garage door that will not close leaves the house open, and on an attached garage that is a door into your home. We answer the line 24 hours a day. The job at night is to get the door open or down and the house secure — the permanent repair happens the same night if the part is on the truck, and on a booked visit if it is not. Across Toronto and the GTA, dispatched from our own shop in Mississauga since 1979.
Call 800-522-6825Book a Repair
Answered 24/7, including holidays · attendance cost quoted before a truck rolls · all makes
If the garage door will not close and the house cannot be locked, call 800-522-6825. The line is answered 24 hours a day, every day of the year, including holidays.
The first job at 2am is always the same: get the door open or down, and get the house secure, so you can go to bed. Whether the repair itself finishes that night depends on the part. The trucks carry spares and often it does — but a spring is matched to your individual door, and the size yours takes may not be on the truck that is nearest you at midnight. We would rather tell you that on the phone than have you expecting a finished job at 3am.
Canuck Door Systems has run emergency door calls across the GTA since 1979. Most of that work is commercial, on overhead doors that cost a business money every hour they are down, and the same radio-dispatched trucks attend houses. That is why we quote you an arrival window rather than a marketing response time: the technician is somewhere real when you call, and we tell you where.
Call, don't fill in a form
An emergency page whose main route is a contact form is a page that has never handled one. Four answers are enough to dispatch:
- The address, and whether the garage connects to the house. An attached garage that cannot be closed is an open door into your home, and it is treated that way.
- Whether the door is open, closed, or stuck part-way, and whether anything is trapped behind it.
- What it is doing, and whether you heard a bang. That one answer usually identifies a broken spring before anyone is on site.
- Whether you can get to it safely. If the door is hanging crooked or a cable has snapped, the honest answer is often no — say so.
What we treat as an emergency
The door will not close
The house cannot be locked and left. On an attached garage this is the top of the queue, whatever the hour.
A spring has gone and the door is up
An uncounterbalanced door is well over 100 kg held by nothing you would want to trust. It gets brought down under control and secured, then re-sprung — that night if the right spring is on the truck.
The door is stuck shut and a car is trapped
Someone has to be somewhere. The door is released, opened manually and taken safely out of service until it is repaired.
A vehicle has hit the door
Panels, tracks and often the frame. Photographed on arrival, secured, and repaired once the extent is known.
Break-in or forced entry damage
The opening is made secure the same night, invoiced separately from the repair, in the format an insurer asks for.
A door hanging crooked in the track
A snapped cable or a jumped drum. It is not a "try it tomorrow" fault — every further cycle makes the repair bigger.
Stuck open in winter
A garage open to −15°C is a security problem, a heating bill and, on an attached garage, a genuine risk to the pipes on the shared wall.
An opener closing on something
A door that will not reverse on an obstruction has a defeated safety system. It is taken out of automatic operation the same night.
What is not an emergency, and we will say so on the phone: a noisy door, a slow or intermittent opener, a remote that has stopped working, a perished weatherseal, or a door that still closes and locks. All of those are a daytime booking at the ordinary rate, and the difference in price is worth a night's wait.
The first job is the opening, not the door
At 2am the useful question is not "can this be repaired" but "can this house be locked". That is what an emergency call-out buys, and everything else is a bonus on top of it. The order on arrival:
- Get the door open, or get it down. A door jammed shut with a car behind it is released and opened by hand; a door stuck up is walked down under control. Neither is left half way.
- Secure the house. The manual lock thrown or the track clamped so the door cannot be lifted, and the opener disconnected so nobody runs it against a broken spring. On a garage with no other route in, that can mean bracing or fixing the door shut instead.
- Repair it, if the part is on the truck. Often it is, and the call ends with a working door. A spring is the one to be realistic about: it is matched to your door, and the size yours takes may not be on the vehicle that reached you fastest.
- Tell you the truth about the gap. Where the part is not there, you get the return date before we leave, and the state we leave the door in is designed to hold until then.
What can be finished tonight, and what cannot
| The call | What we usually find | Finished that night? |
|---|---|---|
| "It won't close" | Photo eyes knocked or dirty, travel limits drifted, obstruction in the track | Usually — sensors and controls are on the truck |
| "There was a bang and it won't lift" | Broken torsion spring | Sometimes. The door is brought down and secured first; re-sprung that night if the right size is on the truck, otherwise on a booked return |
| "It's hanging crooked" | Cable off the drum or snapped | Usually — cables and drums are stocked |
| "The opener runs but nothing moves" | Trolley released, stripped gear, snapped belt or chain | Usually |
| "Someone drove into it" | Panel, track, rollers and sometimes the frame | Secured tonight; a replacement section is ordered to match, so that part is a second visit |
| "It closed on the car / on something" | Force settings or a failed safety reversal | Taken out of automatic operation immediately, then repaired |
| "It's frozen to the ground" | Ice at the bottom seal, sometimes a torn seal underneath | Usually — freed, seal replaced if it has torn |
| "The remote and the keypad both do nothing" | Power, receiver or logic board | Often; a discontinued board is ordered |
After the night: the repair that stops it recurring
An emergency call is a symptom, not a diagnosis. Before the file closes, the technician records what actually failed and whether it will happen again — because the pattern is nearly always specific and fixable.
- The door is out of balance. It has been making the opener do the spring's job, and the opener will be next. A balance check takes minutes.
- The spring was never matched to the door. A previous repair fitted what was on the van. The right rating costs the same and lasts years longer.
- Something keeps hitting it. Usually a vehicle and a tight driveway; occasionally a bike rack. A post costs less than the third panel.
- Nothing has ever been serviced. Rollers, hinges and cables wear predictably, and almost everything that fails at 2am was visible in daylight months earlier.
Four decades of after-hours calls for names Ontario knows — Canada’s Wonderland, Tim Hortons, Canadian Tire, the LCBO, Metrolinx, Marriott & Hilton hotels, the University of Toronto — plus warehouses, dealerships, schools and several thousand houses across the GTA. Dependable people, quality products, since 1979.
Before you call — three things worth knowing
- You do not need to know what is wrong. Describe what the door is doing and whether you heard a bang. Diagnosing it on the phone is our job.
- Ask for the attendance cost. We quote it before a truck is dispatched, and any company that will not is a company you find out about on the invoice.
- Say if it can wait until morning. Plenty of faults honestly can, and the daytime rate is materially less expensive. We will tell you when yours is one of them and book it — see garage door repair.
Emergency dispatch across Toronto & the GTA
The line is answered 24 hours a day, every day of the year, and trucks dispatch from 1645 Bonhill Road in Mississauga — central to the region rather than at one end of it.
Core GTA
- Toronto
- Mississauga
- Brampton
- Vaughan
- Markham
- Scarborough
- North York
- Etobicoke
- Richmond Hill
- Oakville
- Burlington
- Milton
Southern Ontario belt
This belt list is deliberately shorter than the one on our other pages. A 3am garage door call to Niagara, Barrie or Kitchener is a two-hour drive each way, and we would rather tell you that on the phone — and tell you how to secure the opening tonight — than have you waiting up for a truck. See all service areas
What an emergency call-out costs
Two numbers, and it is worth knowing which is which before you call anyone: making the garage secure tonight, and repairing the door properly afterwards.
- The hour — after-hours, weekend and holiday attendance carries a premium on the labour
- How far the address is from Mississauga, since attendance is mostly travel
- What has to happen to secure the opening — closing and locking the door down, or bracing it
- Whether the fault can be finished on the night or only made safe
- The part — rollers, cables and a sensor are one order of magnitude, a spring set or an operator another
- Whether a second, scheduled visit is needed to complete the repair
We quote the attendance cost on the phone before a truck leaves, and the repair cost once the technician has seen the door. Parts are not priced differently because you called at midnight — the premium is on the labour, and it is disclosed. Where the job needs a second, scheduled visit — the right spring not on that truck, a section ordered to match, a discontinued opener board — that visit is quoted at the normal daytime rate. You do not pay an emergency premium twice for one fault.
Common questions
What counts as a garage door emergency?
Three things. The door will not close, so the house cannot be locked — and on an attached garage that is a door into your home, not a shed. The door is stuck open in winter, which is a security problem and a frozen pipe waiting to happen. Or the door has come down and trapped a car, blocking the only way out for someone who has to be somewhere. A noisy door, a slow opener, or a door that still closes and locks is not an emergency, and treating it as one costs you an after-hours premium for nothing.
How fast can you get here?
The line is answered 24 hours a day and trucks dispatch from Mississauga, central to the GTA rather than at one end of it. On the call we give you a real arrival window based on where a technician actually is at that moment — if the honest answer is three hours, we say three hours. What we will not do is publish a fixed response time we could not hold to for every address in Southern Ontario, because that promise is worth nothing at 3am in Whitby.
Can you actually fix it tonight, or just make it safe?
Making it safe is the job we come out to do; finishing the repair is the good outcome, not the promise. The trucks carry spares — cables, rollers, drums, hinges, bottom seals and a range of spring sizes — and a good share of night calls do end with the door working. But a spring has to match your door's weight, height and drum, and the one your door takes may not be on the truck that is nearest you at 2am. When it is not, we get the door open or down, secure the house, and book the return. Nothing made to your opening can be finished on the night either — a bent section, or a door leaf ordered to match. We will tell you which of those you are likely to have while we are still on the phone. If the fault turns out to be the opener rather than the door, we secure the opening tonight and quote a replacement unit — we do not rebuild openers.
How do I get the door down and lock it before you arrive?
If the door is open and a spring has broken, do not try to lower it alone — an uncounterbalanced double door is well over 100 kg coming down. With a second person, pull the emergency release cord, take the weight from both sides, and walk it down; then slide the manual lock bar or clamp a pair of vise grips onto the track just above a roller so it cannot be lifted. If it cannot be lowered safely, leave it and tell us on the call — that moves you up the queue rather than down it.
The power is out and I cannot open the garage. What now?
Pull the emergency release — the red cord hanging from the trolley on the opener rail — and the door disconnects from the operator so it can be lifted by hand. Do it with the door closed where you can. If a spring is broken, releasing a part-open door lets it drop, so treat a heavy door as a two-person job. A power cut on its own is not a call-out; a released door that then will not lift is.
Do you charge more at night?
There is an after-hours premium on the labour and none on the parts, and the attendance figure is quoted before the truck leaves. Where the job needs a second, scheduled visit — a wound spring, an ordered section — that visit is quoted separately at the normal rate. You are not paying an emergency premium twice for one fault.
Someone drove into the garage door. What happens?
We photograph the opening on arrival before touching it and the call-out is timestamped, because that is the format an insurer expects; securing the premises is then invoiced separately from the permanent repair. An impact usually damages more than the panel you can see — tracks, rollers, the bottom bracket and sometimes the frame — so the first visit is also where we work out whether the door can be repaired panel by panel or has reached the end.
Do you take residential calls, or only commercial?
Both, at any hour. Most of our work is commercial — warehouses, plants, dealerships and storefronts — and the same trucks and technicians attend houses. The livery has said commercial, industrial and residential for years, and the after-hours number is the same one.
The same door keeps failing at night. What should we do?
Stop buying call-outs and buy the cause. Repeated after-hours failures on one door almost always trace to something specific: the door is out of balance and quietly destroying its own opener, something keeps hitting it, or a previous repair fitted a spring that was never matched to the door's weight. Three emergency attendances cost more than the permanent fix, and far more than the daytime visit that would have caught it.
Garage open and the door won’t close?
Call the 24/7 line. Tell us whether the garage connects to the house and whether the door can be got down and locked — those two answers set the priority ahead of everything else in the queue.