The timber doors around the Common
The streets around Rondebosch Common and up toward the UCT side have some of the best timber tip-up doors in Cape Town, on houses that predate the idea of a garage motor. They are worth keeping. A rotted bottom rail is replaced without replacing the door, the pivot springs are renewed when the door gets heavy, and a motor sized for a swinging panel is fitted to a door that has been lifted by hand for eighty years. Where the frame has finally gone, a like-for-like timber replacement is made to the opening.
Student lets, and doors that never rest
Rondebosch is also digs country, and a garage door on a house of six students opens more in a week than a family door does in a month. Springs rated for ten thousand cycles do them in two years, rollers flat-spot, and the motor that was fine for a couple is straining. The spring goes on a shorter interval here, and a motor on a busy let is sized for the real cycle count rather than the door alone.
Lost remotes are the other constant with a rotating household. A receiver wipe at every tenant change is the cheapest security a landlord can buy.
Getting here
Rondebosch sits on the M3 and is among the fastest addresses in the city. Newlands, Mowbray and Rosebank share the routes, and an emergency is reached quickly at any hour.