Planned Maintenance Program
One blocked shipping shift costs more than a year of maintenance
Scheduled inspections, written findings with photos and priority response for commercial doors, dock equipment and gate operators across Dallas Fort Worth. Tiered by cycle count, priced per door.
Overview
A commercial garage door preventive maintenance contract puts every door, operator and dock position on a scheduled inspection cycle with a written checklist, documented findings and priority emergency response. Professional Garage Concepts has run commercial door service in Dallas Fort Worth since 2001 and holds 518 Google reviews at a 4.8 star average. Our commercial client list includes Herzog and Coca-Cola.
Commercial doors do not fail without warning. They fail with months of warning that nobody was assigned to look for. A cable frays one strand at a time. A bearing gets loud before it seizes. A leveler leaks down a little further every week. Each of those is a ten minute correction on a scheduled Tuesday and a shutdown on an unscheduled Friday.
The program is priced per door, per visit, and tiered by how hard each opening actually works. A back-of-house bay does not need what an active dock position needs, and you should not pay as though it does.
What a preventive maintenance visit covers
Every visit follows the same written checklist, so the report means the same thing every time and two visits can be compared. The technician cycles the door under power and by hand, measures what can be measured, corrects what can be corrected on the spot, and flags what has to be scheduled.
Point by point, on every covered door:
- Full cycle test under power and under manual operation, with the operator cycle counter reading recorded where one exists
- Torsion spring inspection for gap, set, corrosion and cone condition, with remaining service life estimated
- Cable inspection for fraying, crushing, drum wrap and equal tension on both sides
- Roller, hinge, bearing and shaft inspection, with worn stems and loud bearings called out by position
- Track alignment, mounting and fastener check, including brackets, struts and jamb condition
- Panel, curtain, bottom bar, astragal and weather seal condition
- Operator inspection: motor, gearbox, chain or belt, sprockets, brake, clutch and mounting hardware
- Limit and force settings verified and reset to the door's actual travel
- Safety device testing: photo eyes, sensing edges, reversing systems and entrapment protection
- Control station, wiring, radio receiver, loop detectors and fire alarm interlock tested
- Lubrication of hinges, bearings, springs, rollers and chains with the correct product, not general purpose spray
- Fasteners tightened, hardware adjusted and minor alignment corrected during the visit at no extra charge
- Dock equipment where present: leveler operation and hydraulic pressure, lip function, seals, shelters, bumpers and restraints
- Written condition report with photos, recommended parts and a priority rating on every finding
Inspection frequency by cycle count
Frequency should be set by how many times a door actually opens, not by what is convenient to schedule. Count cycles for one week on your busiest opening and the tier picks itself. Most facilities are surprised by the number, because the estimate people carry in their head is usually about half the real figure.
We set the tier per door, not per building. It is normal for one warehouse to have annual doors along the back wall and quarterly doors on the dock face, all on the same agreement.
- Under 10 cycles per day: annual inspection. Office bays, back-of-house doors, seldom used drive-throughs.
- 10 to 25 cycles per day: semi-annual inspection. Small distribution buildings, fleet shops, dealership service departments.
- 25 to 50 cycles per day: quarterly inspection. Active dock positions, busy fire and municipal apparatus bays.
- 50 to 100 cycles per day: bi-monthly inspection. Forklift corridors, multi-shift dock doors, interior traffic openings.
- Over 100 cycles per day: monthly inspection. Continuous production traffic, cold storage vestibules, high-speed interior doors.
- Fire-rated assemblies: documented annual drop test and reset under NFPA 80, whatever the cycle count.
- Gate operators on the property: same tiering logic, based on vehicle traffic through the entry.
Documentation and compliance records
The report is the product. A visit with no paperwork is a visit you cannot prove happened, and proof is what you need when a fire marshal, an insurance carrier, a safety auditor or a corporate compliance team asks for it.
Every door in the program gets an asset tag and a file. That file holds the baseline survey, every inspection report, every part replaced with the date it went in, cycle counter history where the operator provides it, and fire door drop test records where they apply. Reports go to you as they are produced, and once a year you get a roll-up written for a budget meeting rather than for a technician.
- Asset tagged door and operator inventory by address and opening number
- Dated inspection reports with photos and the technician's name on every visit
- Parts replaced history per opening, useful for warranty claims and for replacement budgeting
- Fire door drop test records under NFPA 80
- Safety device test results, including entrapment protection on every powered opening
- Annual capital planning summary listing the doors approaching the end of their service life
Priority response when something still breaks
Contract customers go to the front of the dispatch queue. When two calls land at the same time and one of them is a program account, the program account gets the truck. That is the practical value of the agreement on the day something breaks anyway.
Preventive maintenance reduces failures. It does not eliminate them, and anyone who tells you otherwise has not worked a dock. Trailers still hit doors. Storms still take out control boards. What the program changes is that we already know your building, we already know which door is at that opening, and we already have the repair history in front of us when the phone rings.
- Priority dispatch ahead of non-contract calls, 24 hours a day
- Technicians arrive knowing the door model, operator model and repair history at that opening
- Commonly failing parts for your specific doors stocked for your account
- Repair labor billed at the rate written into your agreement
- After-hours and weekend scheduling coordinated around your production window
- One phone number, (817) 538-7668, for every building on the agreement
Multi-site coverage across Dallas Fort Worth
One agreement can cover every building you run in the metroplex. We route scheduled visits by geography so a technician covers your Grand Prairie, Arlington and Fort Worth sites in an efficient sequence, and we consolidate the reporting so you get one package instead of chasing three separate invoices.
We work from two DFW locations, at 220 N Main Street in Keller and 801 Greenview Drive in Grand Prairie, which puts crews on both sides of the metroplex. That matters on a 5 a.m. dock call in Irving as much as it does on a scheduled Tuesday in Denton.
- A single agreement covering multiple addresses and multiple door types
- Visits routed by geography to limit scheduling disruption on your side
- Consolidated reporting and invoicing across the portfolio
- Standardized door and operator specifications so parts carry across sites
- Site-specific access, badging and after-hours coordination handled once and recorded
- Doors, dock equipment and gate operators covered under the same program
The economics: run the number before you decide
Here is the arithmetic that makes the case better than any sales call. Take one dock position out of service for a single shift. Every trailer scheduled against that door either waits or gets rerouted to a door that is already committed. You pay detention on the trailers that wait. Your receiving crew works around the gap. Orders that were supposed to ship that day ship the next day, and your customer notices which one it was.
Now price the alternative. A scheduled inspection is a technician on site for well under an hour per door, on a day you picked, with no production interruption, at a rate agreed in advance. In nearly every DFW facility we service, one blocked shipping shift costs more than a full year of scheduled maintenance on every door in the building.
The second number is parts. A spring replaced on schedule is a planned part on a planned visit. The same spring failing under load takes the cable with it, drops the door, and often bends the bottom section or the track on the way down. The unplanned version of that repair costs several times the planned version, and it happens at whatever hour it happens.
The third number is the door itself. Doors that get lubricated, aligned and adjusted on a schedule last years longer than doors that only get attention when they stop. Deferring maintenance does not save money. It moves the money out of the operating budget and into the capital budget, and it charges interest in the form of downtime.
How it works
How the program gets set up
- STEP 01
Baseline survey
We walk every opening at every address and record door type, manufacturer, size, operator model, cycle counter reading and current condition. You get a written baseline before you sign anything, including any repairs needed to bring a door to a maintainable condition.
- STEP 02
Asset tagging and tiering
Each door and operator gets a tag and a file. We set an inspection tier per opening from measured cycle count and how critical that opening is to your operation, so you are not paying dock frequency on an office bay.
- STEP 03
Agreement and published schedule
The agreement names every covered asset, the visit frequency per asset, the labor rate and the response commitment. We publish the visit calendar for the year so your team can plan production and access around it.
- STEP 04
Scheduled visits
Technicians run the same checklist on every visit, correct what can be corrected on the spot, and record everything they find. You get a report with photos, not a signed ticket with no detail on it.
- STEP 05
Findings and approvals
Anything beyond the visit scope comes to you as a written recommendation with a priority rating and a price. Nothing additional gets done without your approval, and nothing shows up on an invoice you did not authorize.
- STEP 06
Annual review
Once a year we review the whole portfolio with you. What failed, what was replaced, which doors are approaching the end of their service life, and what belongs in next year's capital budget.
Straight pricing
How maintenance agreements are priced
Agreements are priced per door, per visit, so a building full of light-duty openings never pays dock-door rates. We quote after the baseline survey, because the number depends on door count, door type, cycle tier and how many addresses are covered.
Annual program
Quoted per door, per visit1 visit per year
Low traffic openings under 10 cycles a day
- Full checklist inspection and written report with photos
- Lubrication and adjustment performed during the visit
- Safety device and entrapment protection testing
- Priority dispatch on emergency calls
- Asset file and parts history maintained per opening
Semi-annual program
Quoted per door, per visit2 visits per year
10 to 25 cycles a day, small distribution buildings and fleet shops
- Everything in the annual program
- Spring and cable service life tracked between visits
- Operator limit and force verification twice a year
- Contract labor rate on repairs
- Fire door drop testing and documentation where applicable
Quarterly program
Quoted per door, per visit4 visits per year
Active dock positions and apparatus bays at 25 to 50 cycles a day
- Everything in the semi-annual program
- Dock leveler, seal, shelter, bumper and restraint inspection
- Cycle counter tracking and wear trending per opening
- Commonly failing parts stocked for your account
- Coordinated after-hours visits around production
High-cycle program
Quoted per door, per visit6 to 12 visits per year
High-speed doors and continuous traffic above 50 cycles a day
- Everything in the quarterly program
- Curtain, brake, photo eye and reversing system service on high-speed doors
- Scheduled wear-part replacement instead of run to failure
- Annual capital planning summary for the portfolio
- Multi-site routing and consolidated invoicing
Answers
Frequently asked questions
Still stuck? Call (817) 538-7668 and talk to someone who does this every day.
What is a commercial garage door preventive maintenance contract?
A preventive maintenance contract is a scheduled service agreement that puts each commercial door and operator on a fixed inspection cycle with a written checklist, documented findings and priority emergency response. Visits are priced per door, per visit, and frequency is set by how many cycles each opening actually runs. Minor adjustment and lubrication are performed during the visit.
How often should commercial garage doors be inspected?
Inspection frequency follows cycle count. Doors under 10 cycles a day are usually fine annually, 10 to 25 cycles a day call for semi-annual visits, 25 to 50 cycles a day need quarterly service, and anything over 50 cycles a day should be inspected every one to two months. Fire-rated doors need a documented drop test every year no matter how little they move.
What does a preventive maintenance visit include?
A visit includes a full cycle test, spring, cable, roller, bearing and track inspection, panel and weather seal condition check, operator and gearbox inspection, limit and force verification, safety device testing, correct lubrication, fastener tightening and a written report with photos. Dock levelers, seals, shelters and bumpers are inspected where they are present.
Is a garage door maintenance contract actually worth the money?
For any facility where a stopped door stops work, yes. One blocked shipping shift usually costs more than a full year of scheduled maintenance on every door in the building, and a spring replaced on schedule costs a fraction of the same spring failing under load, taking the cable with it and bending the bottom section on the way down.
Do contract customers get faster service when something breaks?
Yes. Contract customers get priority dispatch ahead of non-contract calls, 24 hours a day. Technicians arrive already knowing the door model, operator model and repair history at that opening, and commonly failing parts for your specific doors are stocked for your account. Repair labor is billed at the rate written into your agreement.
Can one agreement cover multiple buildings across DFW?
Yes. A single agreement can cover every address you manage in the Dallas Fort Worth metroplex, with visits routed by geography, consolidated reporting and invoicing, and standardized door and operator specifications so parts carry across sites. We work from locations in Keller and Grand Prairie, which puts crews on both sides of the metroplex.
What documentation do we receive with the program?
You receive a dated inspection report with photos for every visit, an asset tagged inventory of every door and operator by address, a parts replaced history per opening, safety device test results, fire door drop test records where they apply, and an annual capital planning summary written for a budget meeting.
Do you maintain loading dock equipment under the same contract?
Yes. Dock levelers, edge-of-dock plates, seals, shelters, bumpers, vehicle restraints and dock lights are all covered on the same agreement as the doors. The door and the dock work as one system, so inspecting them separately misses the faults that shut a dock position down. Gate operators on the property can be added to the same program.
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Learn moreReady to get maintenance contracts handled?
Call (817) 538-7668 or send the form. We answer quote requests the same business day, and we have been doing this across DFW since 2001.