Eight hundred and twenty dollars for the door the builder wanted two thousand nine hundred to replace like-for-like. New springs, new rollers, new weatherstrip, and the balance test signed in my driveway. There is a scuff on the third panel. My truck has several. We get along.
They bought the door OUT of my replacement job — seventy dollars, removed same visit, hauled in the same truck that brought the new one. The installer said he had never worked anywhere that pays you for the thing you are throwing away. The yard’s answer: nothing here is thrown away.
The Grade B for the rental is exactly what a Grade B should be: they showed me the dent on the drawing, not after the hang, and the 30-day check still came round anyway. Two winters of tenants later it opens like it was new, which it technically was.
Services
What the yard sells and does
01
Grade A refurbs, re-hung — from $820
Doors with honest bones out of the county’s better suburbs: sections trued on the bench, hardware replaced outright, fresh weatherstrip top to bottom, a NEW 20,000-cycle pair wound to the door’s weighed pounds, and paint matched if the original skin asks for it. The balance test signed in your driveway, same as a new door.
02
Grade B, told exactly what it is — from $460
The dented, the discontinued, the perfectly straight doors with one bad panel: photographed at the yard, every flaw named on the sheet, priced to the flaw. For sheds, rentals, barns and the garage nobody shows visitors. New springs and the same test; no pretending.
03
Buy-back & removal — we pay $60 to $220
Replacing a working door? We buy it out of the job: cash on the day, removal in the same truck as the new door’s delivery, and the number based on the pair of springs and the skin — quoted before we load it, never renegotiated after.
04
The re-hang service — from $540
Your door, your house, our hardware: modern track, drums and a torsion pair sized to the door’s honest weight, nylon rollers, and photo-eyes proven with a two-by-four. For the beautiful old doors this county hung when it built things to keep.
05
Panels, springs & parts off the racks
The yard holds forty-odd doors at any hour — matched panels for the stampings still made, 20,000 and 50,000-cycle pairs in nine wire gauges, rollers, cables and bottom seals. Bring the old part or a photo of the inside of a panel; the racks answer.
Graded, priced, posted on the yard wall
The outlet card
Re-hung prices — the new spring pair, the hardware, the weatherstrip and the balance test are inside every number. The only variable on a Second Swing invoice is the paint you approve off the flaw sheet.
Grade A steel 8×7, re-hung$820
Trued, sealed, new 20,000-cycle pair · flaws cosmetic or absent · flaw sheet attached
Grade A steel 16×7, re-hung$1,380
The double, same bench, same test · the door the builder wanted four thousand for
Grade B, shed and rental gradefrom $460
Every flaw named on the sheet and photographed before the hang · new pair regardless
Buy-back on the door you are replacingwe pay $60–$220
Quoted from photos before the truck rolls · cash on the day, removal included
The re-hang, your door on new gutsfrom $540
Track, drums, matched torsion pair, nylon rollers, photo-eyes proven
Spring pair off the racks, wound todayfrom $252
20,000-cycle $252 · 50,000-cycle $368 · nine wire gauges, matched to weighed pounds
The 30-day check$0
On every door that leaves the yard — balance, weatherstrip, hardware settling
How it goes
A door’s second life, buy-back to 30-day check
The same sequence on every job — the only variable is your project.
The buy-back call
Photographed and priced in the driveway
You send a photo of the door you are replacing; the yard quotes the buy-back against the new job in the same breath. On the day, the door comes out clean, goes on the truck, and the cash is out of the glovebox before the new one comes off it.
The bench fortnight
Stripped, trued, re-hung on new guts
Sections trued on the bench, dents pushed or panels swapped from the racks, hardware replaced outright, weatherstrip renewed, and a new 20,000-cycle pair wound to the door’s weighed pounds — never the springs it arrived wearing.
The grading
The flaw sheet is written here
Grade A or B is decided by what the bench revealed, and the flaw sheet written the same hour: every dent, every scar, every replaced panel, photographed and stapled to the door’s card. The grade is a promise about what you will find, not a price the yard liked.
The re-hang day
One morning, one truck
Out with the old and away in the same truck, track plumb, the new pair wound, photo-eyes proven, and the balance test in front of you: opener off, door to waist height, it holds. The flaw sheet goes home with the invoice.
The 30-day check
We come back, unasked
Thirty days on, the yard re-reads every door it re-hung: the balance, the weatherstrip, the hardware settling in. It costs nothing, sells nothing, and catches the one door in fifty that wants a turn more on the drums.
TRADE-IN SATURDAYS — bring the old door’s measurements and a photo of the worst panel, leave with the buy-back number in writing. First Saturday of the month, the yard on Slagline Road, eight to noon.
Racks, benches, re-hangs
The yard, and what left it this month
Forty-odd doors on the racks at any hour, and six that left them recently for houses that needed a door more than a ceremony.
Since 2015, by the yard book
The second swings, in figures
The first door I ever re-hung was my own. It came off a demolition on Foundry Green in 2015 — the builder was going to scrap it — and it hung on my garage for the price of a spring pair and a Saturday. Half the street asked where I got it. That was the plan: this county hangs thousands of honest doors a year and scraps the ones that are still doors. A door is steel, springs and weatherstrip, all replaceable — the landfill was getting the only part that never wears out. Every door we sell carries the rule mine did: new guts, honest sheet, balance test, my number if the check finds a miss.
The five the yard hears weekly
Asked across the counter
Answered in the same words the flaw sheets use — which is the only dialect the yard speaks.
A used door — what is actually new on it?
Everything that wears: the spring pair is new and wound to the door’s weighed pounds, the rollers and cables are new, the weatherstrip is new, and the hardware is replaced rather than adjusted into one more season. What you are buying second-hand is the steel and the paint — which is to say, the parts that do not have a cycle count.
Why replace the springs on a door you are selling cheap?
Because a spring is a consumable with a gauge on it, not a feature: a door with mystery cycles is a door with a surprise in it, and the surprise always arrives with both cars inside. New pairs on every re-hang are why the yard can put a 30-day check and a warranty on a second-hand door with a straight face.
How does the buy-back number get decided?
Skin, sections and springs: gauge of the steel, straightness of the sections, and whether the pair on it has cycles worth crediting. It is quoted from your photos before the truck rolls, and the number does not change in the driveway — a buy-back that shrinks on arrival is not a buy-back, it is a hostage exchange.
Grade A or Grade B for my house?
The A for the door people see from the street — flaws cosmetic or absent, everything mechanical new. The B for the shed, the rental, the side door nobody photographs, where a named dent on a sheet is worth four hundred dollars of honesty. The grade is on the card; your street makes the call.
Can you match the panels on my fifteen-year-old door?
Often, straight off the racks — the stampings of the last three decades pass through the yard weekly, and a single matched panel plus paint to the weathered neighbours saves many a good door a season early. Bring a photo of the inside of a panel; the racks answer in minutes.
The yard on Slagline Road, Mon–Sat · (555) 171-3356 · yard@secondswing.example · trade-in Saturdays, first of the month, 8 to noon
Ask what is on the racks
Size, one photo of the opening, and whether the street gets to see it — that is enough to send back the racks that fit, the grades they carry and the numbers on their cards. Or call the yard counter, where somebody is standing next to the doors. yard@secondswing.example