The most common repair we do, and the one job on a garage door that is genuinely dangerous to attempt yourself. We weigh your door and match the spring to what it actually weighs.
The spring, not the opener, lifts your door. A properly sprung door is balanced so finely that a 150 pound slab of steel lifts with one hand, and the opener only guides it. That balance is also why a break feels so sudden. The door goes from weightless to dead weight in one bang.
It is also why the spring has to match the door. We weigh the door rather than read a chart, because a repainted wood door or a replaced panel changes what it weighs, and a spring wound for the wrong weight leaves the door out of balance from day one. An out-of-balance door is what quietly wears openers out.
The bar above the opening, and what nearly every door here runs. They are rated in cycles rather than years, and on a double door they get replaced as a pair. High-cycle versions are worth it on a door that works hard. This is the standard job at $200 to $330 installed.
The older setup, stretched along the horizontal tracks on each side. Still common on original single-car garages in San Carlos and Daly City. Every extension spring we fit gets a containment cable through the coil, so a future break stays on the cable instead of crossing the garage.
| 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 price we publish is on the garage door repair cost page. If your spring has already gone, the broken spring page covers what to do right now, before anyone arrives.
$200 to $330 installed for a single torsion spring, and the job takes about an hour. A door that runs a pair costs less done together than as two separate visits, and the second spring is on the same clock as the first.
The usual sequence is a loud bang from the garage, then a door that feels impossibly heavy or lifts a few inches and stops. On a torsion setup you can often see the break: a clear gap in the coil on the bar above the door.
Both, when the door runs two. They were installed together and have cycled together, so a broken one means its partner is at the end of the same life. Replacing them together also lets us balance the door once, properly.
Springs are rated in cycles rather than years. A standard 10,000 cycle spring on a door opened four times a day lasts about seven years. A 25,000 cycle spring costs more up front and suits a door that works hard every day.
A wound torsion spring stores several hundred pounds of energy, and replacing it means releasing that tension and winding the new spring with bars, under load, on a ladder. It is the one garage door job that reliably injures people who attempt it. Everything else on this site has a homeowner-safe version. This one does not.
Call (650) 376-6070 and tell us what the door is doing. A spring job is usually recognizable from one sentence on the phone.
Call before early afternoon and we can usually get out the same day.
Call (650) 376-6070