Garage Door Problems
My garage door spring broke — can I still open the door?
Usually it starts with a single loud bang from the garage — like a firecracker or something falling. Afterward the door won't lift with the opener, and above the door you can see a torsion spring with a visible two-inch gap in the coil where it snapped.
The symptom
What's actually wrong
Torsion springs are wound to counterbalance the door's full weight, and they're rated in open-close cycles. Builder-grade springs carry roughly 10,000 cycles — about seven to twelve years of normal use — and when the steel fatigues it lets go all at once, which is the bang. Connecticut doors fail most in cold snaps, when contracting steel pushes tired springs over the edge, and shoreline hardware fails earlier where salt air has been eating the coil.
Before you touch anything
Technically a strong adult can lift a spring-dead single door by hand — but the full weight is real, there is no counterbalance to catch it, and it will slam if you lose it. A double door should not be hand-lifted at all. Never run the opener repeatedly against a dead spring: the opener was built to guide a balanced door, not to hoist it, and stripped gears or a bent top panel turn a spring job into a much bigger repair.
How we repair it
Spring replacement is a same-visit job from a stocked truck: the technician unloads what's left of the old spring, matches wire gauge, diameter, and length to your door's measured weight, winds the new spring to balance, and safety-tests the door through full cycles. If one spring of a pair has snapped, replacing both at once is standard practice — the survivor has the same mileage and fails next. You'll have the exact price in writing before any work begins.
This is handled by our Springs, Cables & Tracks service — same-day across Connecticut.
Common questions
Is it dangerous to replace a garage door spring myself?
Yes — a wound torsion spring stores enough energy to cause serious injury, and it's the one garage door repair that consistently sends DIYers to the ER. This is a job for winding bars and training.
Should I replace one spring or both?
If your door runs a pair and one snapped, replace both. They aged together; the second one is living on borrowed time and its failure will cost a second service visit.
How long does spring replacement take?
Most single-visit spring replacements are done within about an hour on site, including rebalancing and a full safety test.
Also worth checking
Springs are the one repair worth doing before the second one lets go.
Need garage door help today?
Call for a straightforward appointment window and a written estimate.