Garage Door Spring Repair

Torsion vs. Extension Springs: Which Type Your Door Has

Almost every garage door uses one of two spring systems, and you can identify yours from the garage floor without touching anything.

• Torsion springs mount on a steel shaft directly above the door opening. They twist tightly as the door closes, storing energy, then unwind to turn the shaft and lift the door through cables wound on drums at each end. Most modern doors use one or two torsion springs.
• Extension springs run alongside the horizontal tracks on each side of the door and stretch as the door closes. A properly installed extension system includes a safety cable threaded through each spring so a broken spring cannot whip across the garage.

Either way, the spring's job is counterbalance. A typical double-wide steel door weighs well over a hundred pounds, yet a balanced door lifts with one hand. The opener only supplies a modest push — the springs carry the real weight.

How to Tell a Garage Door Spring Is Broken

Spring failure is usually sudden and obvious. Look for these signs:

• A loud bang from the garage. A torsion spring releases its stored tension in a fraction of a second when it snaps, and it often sounds like something heavy fell.
• A visible gap in the coil. Look at the spring above the door. A broken torsion spring shows a clean separation of about two inches between the coil halves.
• The door will not lift, or the opener hums, raises the door a few inches, then stops or reverses. Many openers sense the extra load and shut down to protect themselves.
• The door feels extremely heavy if you try to lift it by hand — that is the door's true, uncounterbalanced weight.
• Loose, slack cables hanging near the drums. When the spring stops holding tension, the lift cables often go limp or slip off.
• The top panel flexes when the opener tries to pull dead weight it was never designed to move.

Spring Cycle Life and Why Springs Are Replaced in Pairs

Springs are rated in cycles, not years. One cycle is one full open and close. A standard garage door spring is built for roughly 10,000 cycles. At four cycles a day, that is about seven years of use; a busy household that uses the garage as the front door will get there much faster. Rust, cold, and a lack of lubrication can shorten that life. Higher-cycle springs exist, and a technician can discuss whether they make sense for your door.

On a two-spring door, both springs were almost always installed at the same time and have logged the same cycle count. When one breaks, its twin is near the end of its life too. Replacing them as a pair keeps the door balanced side to side and avoids a second failure — and a second repair visit — weeks later. Repair needs vary by door and hardware, so a technician can confirm the right setup after measuring your existing springs.

Why Spring Replacement Is Not a DIY Job

Please do not attempt to remove, adjust, or wind garage door springs yourself. A wound torsion spring stores hundreds of pounds of force. Installing or removing one requires purpose-made winding bars seated fully in the winding cone, plus the correct spring size — wire diameter, inside diameter, and length all matter. A slipped screwdriver, a partly seated bar, or a loosened set screw can release that energy instantly, and the injuries this causes are severe. Extension springs under stretch are dangerous for the same reason.

What you can safely do while you wait: keep people and pets away from the door, stop pressing the opener button, and leave the door in whatever position it is in. Do not pull the opener's red emergency release cord while the door is up — with a broken spring, nothing is holding the door, and it can crash down. Photographing the spring gap from the floor is safe and helps a technician prepare.

How to Request Spring Repair

Emergency garage door problems are our focus, and a snapped spring is one of the most common requests we handle. To get started, submit a service request through the form on our contact page. A short description helps the technician arrive prepared:

• Single-car or double-car door, and roughly how old it is
• Whether the spring sits on a shaft above the door (torsion) or along the tracks (extension)
• What you noticed — a bang, a gap in the coil, slack cables, a door that will not lift

A technician can then assess the door, measure the existing springs, and install correctly sized replacements, checking the cables, drums, and door balance as part of the job. Describe the problem, submit your request, and leave the tensioned parts to someone with the right tools.