Probably the most common repair we do on garage doors is to replace the springs. Springs are typically rated for about 5,000 rotations and are prone to breaking around that many uses. A rotation is counted as one cycle of opening and closing your door. When these springs break, it becomes extremely difficult to open and close your door. Garage doors are predictably heavy, and the main job of the garage door spring is to shoulder that weight. The springs job is to make sure that all the friction from the weight of the door is reversed, making it easy enough for anyone to open their garage door. Now, if you have a garage door opener you probably don’t even know how easily it is to open and close your door by yourself! I have an opener and I never open my door manually unless there was a power outage. However, if your spring breaks you might find out the hard way how heavy your door is. Openers are not made to be able to lift the full weight of the door, and will often be rendered unable to open or close your door when the springs have broken.
So yes, having a broken spring is a huge inconvenience. And a quick google or youtube search might tell you that replacing those springs is an easy DIY project that you can handle! Whereas replacing garage door springs is not the most complicated job, it is a dangerous one. To put it quite frankly, we recommend that you do not replace your garage door springs unless you are trained by someone who is a professional. These springs carry an enormous amount of torque. One of the last steps of replacing your springs is to wind the spring with steel winding rods. These springs become so tightly wound that if you were to slip, or tighten them too loosely or tightly, they could unwind, or break and injure your greatly. Many a professional garage door repair person has ended up with a broken nose from a runaway winding rod.
Furthermore, there are a few steps at the beginning that are dangerous as well. If you only have one broken spring, you will need to unwind the unbroken one, and then remove the cables. This is also a specialized job that trained professionals know how to do well. But if done incorrectly could end in damage to your body or belongings in your garage.
Of course, the danger is not the only factor in why we recommend against replacing your own springs. Garage door spring sizes are extremely varried, and also extremely important to get right. There are hundreds of spring sizes, so It’s important that they are measured correctly. The incorrect size could result in your door operating poorly. If your door is not operating correctly, it will put undue pressure on the other parts of the door, and cause it to wear more quickly.
If you would like to replace your springs yourself knowing the risks, you can always safely remove both door springs and bring them into our shop. We have specialized measuring implements that will get you the correct size, or one that is easily interchangeable. It is integral that you have the springs measured properly and get the exact size that you need. Buying a spring online is often cheaper, but often a totally wrong size. We require you to bring both springs into be measured because we do not offer refunds on springs that are taken out of our doors. We guarantee our springs are of the highest quality, and once they leave our doors we don’t have control over how they are treated or used, so we are unfortunately unable to take them back.