Broken Garage Door Spring: What to Do Right Now

The bang usually comes out of nowhere. It can happen with the door closed and nobody in the garage, because the springs carry the most tension when the door is down. The repair is routine. What matters is what you do in the next hour, before anyone tries the opener again or tries to muscle the door up.

The short version: leave the door closed, unplug the opener and book the repair. The rest of this page explains why, and what to do while you wait.

Safety first: what not to do

Read this before you do anything else. Never unwind, adjust or remove a torsion or extension spring, a cable, a cable drum or a bottom bracket. The spring that did not break, the cables and the bottom brackets can still hold enough tension to injure you. Never run the opener with a broken spring or a snapped cable. Keep people and pets out from under a door that is crooked or jammed.

• Do not run the opener. It was built to guide a balanced door, not lift a dead weight. Trying can strip the drive gear, bend the rail and crack the top section.
• Unplug the opener so nobody presses a remote or the wall button out of habit.
• Do not lift the door by hand. A double steel door with a broken spring can weigh well over 100 pounds, wood doors weigh more, and nothing catches it if your grip slips.
• Leave the emergency release cord alone. On an open door, the opener may be the only thing holding it up. On a closed door, pulling it only tempts someone to try lifting it.

How do you know the spring broke?

Look for these signs from where you stand. You do not need to touch anything.

• A loud bang from the garage, often while nobody was using the door.
• A gap of about two inches in the coil of the torsion spring on the bar above the door. The two halves of the spring sit apart on the shaft.
• The door will not open, or it lifts a few inches and stops. The opener senses the weight and gives up.
• Lift cables hanging slack beside the door instead of running tight to the drums.
• On extension spring doors, one spring along the ceiling track is stretched out, snapped, or hanging from its safety cable.
• The door goes up crooked or feels far heavier than usual.

If you see a cable off its drum or the door hanging at an angle, that is a cable problem as well, covered on our cable snapped or off the drum page.

What if the door is stuck open?

Leave it open. Keep everyone out from under it and do not park beneath it. Do not pull the release cord and do not try to close it with the opener.

Lock the door from the garage into the house, move anything valuable out of sight, and tell us the door is stuck open when you book. That changes how we secure it before we start.

While you wait for the repair

Once the opener is unplugged and everyone is clear, the rest is waiting. A few things make the wait easier and the visit faster, and none of them involve touching the door.

If your car is inside

Leave it there. Do not lift the door by hand to get it out, and do not press the remote to see whether the opener can manage it. Plan another way to get around for the day: a ride, a second car or a neighbor.

Tell us the car is inside when you book. When we arrive we clamp the door so it cannot move, then fit, wind and balance the new springs before we look at anything else. Once the door opens normally, you can drive out, in most cases within 45 minutes to an hour of our arrival.

What you can safely do

• Keep the opener unplugged. Tape a note over the wall button so nobody in the house presses it out of habit.
• Take photos from the floor. One of the springs above the door, one of each bottom corner where the cables attach, one of the whole door from inside, and one of the label on the opener. They tell us which springs to bring and whether the cables need work too.
• Look at both lift cables without touching them. A cable that hangs slack or sits off its drum is worth mentioning when you book.
• Make some room if the door is closed and level. Move bikes, bins and boxes back from the door so there is space for a ladder under the spring shaft. If the door is crooked or open, leave everything where it is and stay clear.
• Use another way in and out of the house, such as the front door or a side door.

What you are seeing and what it means

What does the repair involve?

Here is what happens on the visit for a typical torsion spring door.

1. We clamp the door to the track so it cannot move.
2. We let down the tension on the spring that did not break, using proper winding bars.
3. We remove both old springs and match the new pair to the door by wire size, inside diameter and length.
4. We fit the new springs and inspect the lift cables, cable drums, center bearing plate and end bearings, replacing anything worn.
5. We wind the springs to the weight of the door, set the cables evenly on both drums and test the balance with the door halfway up.
6. We lubricate the springs, rollers and hinges, then check the opener’s force setting, the auto-reverse and the safety sensors.

For a standard pair of torsion springs that usually takes 45 minutes to an hour. Frayed cables, worn rollers or a Wayne Dalton TorqueMaster system add time. On extension spring doors we replace both springs, check the pulleys and cables, and make sure a safety cable runs through each spring. The details are on our spring replacement page, and if a cable came off too, on cable and drum replacement.

Why are both springs replaced?

Two springs that went on the door together have made the same number of cycles. When one breaks, the other is close behind. DASMA, the door industry association, advises replacing both even if only one is broken.

Standard springs are commonly rated around 10,000 cycles. If yours lasted less than you expected, ask about high-cycle springs. Our spring replacement cost guide covers typical San Diego prices, and the torsion vs extension springs guide explains which system you have.

Across San Diego

The call sounds the same everywhere: a bang, then a door that will not move. Whether it is a two-car door in Chula Vista or an older single door in El Cajon, the steps are the same. Door closed, opener unplugged, nobody under it, hands off the hardware.

Next step

Leave the door closed, unplug the opener and book spring replacement. A photo of the springs above the door helps us bring the right pair, and the broken spring page covers the other signs of a broken spring.