Garage Door Spring Repair in Bowling Green, KY

Broken torsion and extension springs. The most common failure and the one not to attempt yourself.

A garage door does not lift on the opener's strength. The springs counterbalance the door's weight, and the opener only overcomes the small remaining difference. That is why a door with a broken spring either will not move or moves and then slams: the counterweight is gone and the opener is suddenly trying to lift 150 to 400 pounds it was never sized for.

You can usually tell which kind you have by looking. A torsion spring sits on a steel shaft above the opening, parallel to the header. Extension springs run along the horizontal tracks on either side, stretching as the door closes. Torsion is the more common modern arrangement and the more dangerous of the two to service.

Expect roughly $200 to $400 installed for a single torsion spring, and $300 to $600 for a matched pair on a double door. The range moves with wire gauge, length and cycle rating. A standard spring is rated around 10,000 cycles, which is roughly seven to twelve years for an average household opening the door three or four times a day. A 20,000 cycle spring costs modestly more and roughly doubles that.

When one spring of a pair breaks, replacing both is the normal recommendation and in this case it is honest advice rather than an upsell. Both were installed at the same time and have taken the same number of cycles, so the survivor is near the end of its life too. Replacing one means paying a second call-out within a year or so.

This is the one repair on this site where the advice is simply do not. A wound torsion spring stores a great deal of energy, and releasing it without proper winding bars is how people break fingers and wrists. The bars themselves become projectiles if they slip. The savings are not worth it.

While the technician is there, ask about the cables, the bearings and the shaft. Those parts wear on the same schedule, the labour is already being paid for, and adding them at the same visit costs far less than a separate trip later.