# Garage door repair in Wilmington, DE

> Rowhouse blocks, trolley-era neighborhoods and 1950s streets: garage door repair and new doors inside Wilmington's city limits.

Page: https://www.bluehengaragedoors.com/wilmington-delaware

Blue Hen Garage Doors repairs and installs garage doors in Wilmington from our Dover office, up DE-1 and I-95.

Wilmington is Delaware's largest city, and its houses are old: Census estimates put the median build year at 1946, with about 43 percent built before 1940. More than half of all homes are attached rowhouses, and fewer than one in ten is a detached house.

- County: New Castle County, Delaware
- ZIP codes: 19801, 19802, 19805, 19806, 19809
- Permits: City of Wilmington Department of Land Use & Planning (https://www.wilmingtonde.gov/government/city-departments/land-use-and-planning). The department issues building permits from the Louis L. Redding City/County Building at 800 N. French Street ((302) 576-3050) and staffs the Design Review and Preservation Commission. Exterior changes in the city's historic districts and its conservation district go through that commission's review.

## Wilmington homes: rowhouses, planned neighborhoods and 1950s singles

The city grew west from the 1860s. Trolley Square was settled after the trolley line reached old farmland, the Highlands filled with detached and semi-detached houses in the 19th century, and planned neighborhoods followed: Union Park Gardens, with 503 houses, for World War I shipyard workers, and Wawaset Park, which DuPont began developing after buying the land in 1917 and which is now a National Register district of 321 contributing buildings.

Detached neighborhoods came later: Brandywine Hills, about 225 homes, was started in the 1930s, and Westmoreland was built in the 1950s next to the original Wilmington Country Club. On houses this old, a garage may be on its third or fourth door, and the opening may no longer be square, so we measure the opening, headroom and jambs before pricing a Haas steel or aluminum replacement.

## Fall Line hills, river lowlands and freeze-thaw winters

Wilmington sits on the Fall Line. West of Market Street the ground is rocky and hilly; east of it and along the Christina River the land is flat, low and marshy in places. July averages 76.8 degrees with about 21 days of 90 or more, January averages 32.4, and seasonal snowfall averages about 20 inches. That freeze-thaw cycle works on weatherstripping and bottom seals, and on a hillside lot, runoff and ice collect at the bottom of a garage door.

## Services

- [Garage door repair](https://www.bluehengaragedoors.com/garage-door-repair): On older garages in neighborhoods like Westmoreland, Brandywine Hills and the Highlands, we repair springs, cables, rollers and tracks, and we tell you honestly when a door is worth saving.
- [Garage door opener repair](https://www.bluehengaragedoors.com/garage-door-opener-repair): We repair and replace opener motors, photo eyes, remotes and keypads, including openers in city garages old enough to predate photo eyes altogether.
- [New garage door installation](https://www.bluehengaragedoors.com/garage-door-installation): In the city's 12 historic districts and the Forty Acres conservation district, a new door goes through design review, so we give you the door's specifications and product images for your application.
- [Commercial garage doors](https://www.bluehengaragedoors.com/commercial-garage-doors): For Wilmington businesses, we repair and install commercial overhead doors, from loading doors to service bays.

## Neighborhoods and nearby areas

Trolley Square, Forty Acres, Wawaset Park, The Highlands, Little Italy, Union Park Gardens, Westmoreland, Brandywine Hills, Canby Park, Cool Spring/Tilton Park, Quaker Hill, Triangle, Happy Valley, Ninth Ward

## Questions

### Do Wilmington's historic district rules cover garage doors?

They cover exterior changes, so plan on review. The Design Review and Preservation Commission reviews exterior building alterations in Wilmington's 12 city historic districts, two C-6 zoning districts and one neighborhood conservation district, Forty Acres. Review starts with your permit application, there is no fee for it, and the commission meets the third Wednesday of each month at 6:30 pm. Complete packets are due three weeks before the meeting.

### My address says Wilmington. Am I in the city?

Maybe not. The Wilmington mailing area reaches well past the city line, and the 19803 and 19810 ZIPs north of the city lie almost entirely in unincorporated New Castle County. Inside the city, permits come from the Department of Land Use & Planning at 800 N. French Street. Outside it, New Castle County's Land Use office handles them, and the city's historic district rules do not apply.

## Contact

Blue Hen Garage Doors, 110 Lafferty Ln, Suite F, Dover, DE 19901. Phone (302) 735-0046. Email Dalton@bluehengaragedoors.com. Office hours: Monday to Friday, 8am to 4:30pm.