A broken spring is the most common garage door failure we see, and the one you should least be tempted to tackle yourself. Here's how to recognise it and what to do.
If you heard a bang from the garage that sounded like a gunshot and now the door will not lift, you almost certainly have a broken spring. It is the single most common garage door failure, and on a door that gets used several times a day it is a question of when rather than if.
How to tell it's the spring
The springs sit above the door, or along the tracks on either side, and they carry the weight of the door so the opener does not have to. When one fails you tend to see some combination of the following:
- A loud bang from the garage, often when nobody was operating the door
- A visible gap in the coil above the door, as though it has been cut
- The door will not lift by hand at all, or feels enormously heavy
- The opener strains, hums, or lifts the door a few inches and gives up
- The door lifts crooked, with one side rising ahead of the other
Why this one is not a DIY job
We say this about very few repairs, but we say it about this one: leave the springs alone. A torsion spring holds an enormous amount of stored energy, and it holds that energy whether the door is up, down, or halfway. Releasing it without the right winding bars, and without knowing exactly how far to wind it back, is how people end up in hospital. It is also easy to fit a spring of the wrong rating, which leaves the door unbalanced and quietly wears out the opener you just paid to protect.
The other thing worth knowing: springs are usually installed in pairs, and they age at the same rate. If one has gone and the other is the same age, it is often worth replacing both while the door is already apart, rather than doing the whole job twice a few months apart.
What to do in the meantime
Stop using the opener. Forcing it against a door that has lost its counterbalance is a good way to turn one repair into two. If your opener has a red manual release cord, and your car is stuck inside, pull it only if you are confident the door will stay put — with a broken spring the door is heavy and it can come down fast. If you are not sure, wait.
Then give us a call. We will look at the springs, the cables, the drums and the door's balance together, because a spring rarely fails in isolation, and we will tell you what we find before we do anything about it.
