Leave the door where it is and stop pressing the opener button. A broken spring drops the whole weight of the door onto the opener and the cables.
Stop using the opener. Every press puts the full weight of the door through the drive gear.
If the door is open, leave it open and park outside rather than under it.
Do not lift it by hand. A door with a broken spring can weigh over 150 pounds with nothing holding it up.
Keep children and pets out of the garage until someone has looked at it.
Springs are rated in cycles, not years. A common 10,000 cycle spring on a door that opens four times a day reaches the end of that rating in about seven years. The spring does nearly all the lifting, and the opener only guides a door the spring has already balanced. When the spring goes, the opener is suddenly asked to lift the whole door on its own, which is the one thing it was never built to do.
Spring replacement is the one garage door job that is genuinely dangerous to attempt. A torsion spring holds several hundred pounds of stored energy and has to be wound under tension with bars. This is the job that sends people to the hospital, and it is not a saving worth making.
| Job | Price | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Spring replacement | $200 to $330 | About an hour on site. If the door runs two springs, replacing both together is usually the better call, because they wear at the same rate and the second one tends to follow within months. |
Every job we price is listed on the garage door repair cost page, and what each involves is under repair services.
$200 to $330 installed for a single torsion spring, and the job takes about an hour. If the door runs two springs, replacing both together is usually the better call, because they wear at the same rate and the second one normally follows within months.
No. The spring carries the weight of the door, and without it the opener and the cables take the whole load. Running it that way is how a straightforward spring replacement turns into a bent track, a burnt out drive gear and a snapped cable.
Both, on a door that has two. They went on at the same time and have been through the same number of cycles, so a broken one means the other is at the end of its life too. Doing them together costs less than two separate visits.
Seven to ten years for a standard 10,000 cycle spring on a door used four times a day. High cycle springs rated to 25,000 cycles cost more up front and are worth it on a door that gets heavy daily use.
Other problems we get called out for: garage door off track , garage door opener not working , garage door will not close , garage door will not open , snapped garage door cable , noisy garage door , garage door remote not working .
Call before early afternoon and we can usually get out the same day.
Call (650) 376-6070