Is My Garage Door Spring Broken? The Signs, and What to Do Next

The classic one is the noise. A torsion spring lets go with a bang loud enough to hear from inside the house, and people often think something fell over in the garage. The next morning the door won't open.

Look at the spring itself. A torsion spring sits on a bar above the door, and a broken one has a clear gap of a few centimetres somewhere along the coil. Extension springs run along the horizontal tracks on either side, and a broken one hangs loose or lies on the floor. On a Wayne Dalton TorqueMaster door the springs are inside the tube, so you won't see anything.

Then there's what the door does. The opener lifts the door a few inches and stops, or strains and reverses. The top panel bends where the opener arm pulls on it. The lift cables on one or both sides hang slack, or one has jumped off its drum and the door sits crooked. By hand, the door feels like dead weight: 150 to 400 pounds, depending on its size, which is what the springs were carrying for you.

Springs wear out by cycles. A standard torsion spring is rated for about 10,000 open-and-close cycles, which is seven to ten years for most households and much less for a door that opens a dozen times a day. Every cycle flexes the steel, and eventually it fatigues and snaps.

Cold speeds it up. Steel gets more brittle in deep cold, and a cold door is harder to lift: the rubber seals stiffen, lubricant thickens, and ice adds weight. A spring that was close to the end of its life often goes in the first hard freeze of the year.

Rust, a spring that was sized for a lighter door, and a door that was never balanced properly all shorten the count. Our spring repair page covers what we do to get the next set to last.

With the door fully closed, pull the red release cord on the opener rail and try to lift the door by hand.

If it's heavy, won't budge, or you can only get it up with real effort, it's the spring. If it lifts with normal effort and stays where you put it, the springs are fine and the problem is the opener, the sensors, or something the opener is seeing. The balance test walks through this properly, and the opener guides cover the opener side.

Leave the door closed and don't run the opener. Every attempt pulls the full weight of the door through the opener's gear and the top panel, and that's how a spring repair turns into a spring repair plus a new opener or a new panel.

If you absolutely have to get a car out, two adults can usually lift the door together: one holds it open while the other moves the car. Don't try it alone, don't let the door drop, and don't drive under a door that's being held by hand. Then book the repair. Spring replacement is a same-day call for us in most of Winnipeg.

We replace both springs on a two-spring door, even when only one has broken. They were installed together, they've done the same cycles, and the second one is close behind. We size the new springs to the door's weight rather than copying whatever was there, check the cables, drums, and bearings while the tension is off, balance the door, and test the opener's force and reversing afterward. Most spring repairs take about an hour.