Garage Door Spring Replacement
Broken torsion and extension springs replaced as correctly matched sets.
View serviceSigns of a Broken Garage Door Spring
A broken spring is the most common serious garage door failure and one of the easiest to confirm from a safe distance. It also gives warning for months beforehand, if you know what you are looking at.
Short answer
The clearest sign is a visible gap of a few centimetres in one of the coils on the spring above the door: torsion springs break by separating, and the two ends spring apart. Other reliable signs are a loud bang from the garage followed by a door that will not lift, a door that feels enormously heavy by hand, an operator that strains and stops after a few inches, and a door that slams the last stretch of its closing travel. Any of these mean the door should not be operated until it is repaired.
The torsion springs above the door do almost all the work of lifting it. They store energy when the door closes and release it when the door opens, which is why a hundred-and-fifty-kilogram door can be raised by hand when everything is right. When a spring breaks, that counterbalance disappears instantly and the door's whole weight lands on the cables and the operator, neither of which is designed to carry it. The failure itself is usually unmistakable: a bang loud enough to be heard through the house, and a door that afterwards will not lift or lifts a few inches and stops. What is less well known is that springs telegraph their decline first, and a door that has started sinking when you release it is giving you the chance to schedule the repair rather than discover it on a January morning.
Diagnose in order
Work Through These Checks
Start at the top. The early checks are the most common causes and need no tools.
-
Look at the spring itself from a safe distance
With the door closed, stand back and look at the shaft above the opening. A torsion spring is a tight coil wound along that shaft. A break shows as a clean gap of two to five centimetres where the coil separates, sometimes with the ends slightly splayed. Use a torch if the garage is dim. Do not climb up to it, touch it, or put a ladder in line with the shaft.
What it means: A visible gap in the coil is a broken spring, confirmed, and no further testing is needed.
-
Recall whether you heard a bang
Households almost always report a single loud bang, often overnight or as the door closed, and sometimes mistake it for something falling in the garage. If the door stopped working at the same time as that noise, the two are the same event. Note when it happened, because a door that has been operated since then may have picked up further damage.
What it means: A bang followed by a door that will not lift is a broken spring in the great majority of cases.
-
Test the weight by hand, carefully
Only attempt this if the door is fully closed. Disconnect the operator at the manual release, then try to lift the door a few centimetres. A properly counterbalanced door lifts with modest effort. A door with a broken spring feels like lifting its full dead weight. If it does not move easily, let it be and do not persist.
What it means: A door that feels like dead weight has lost its counterbalance and should be left closed.
-
Watch what the operator does
From well clear of the opening, send one command. An operator facing a broken spring typically strains, lifts the door a few inches, then stops or reverses on its force limit. Some units simply hum. Do not send a second command; repeated attempts are how a spring failure becomes a cable failure or a derailment as well.
What it means: Straining, lifting a few inches and stopping is the classic signature of lost counterbalance.
-
Check for the warning signs on a door still working
If the door still functions, disconnect the operator and lift it to waist height, then release. Note whether it holds, sinks or climbs. Look for coil gapping, heavy rust on the spring, and whether the last stretch of closing travel happens faster than the rest. Note whether one side leads the other on the way up.
What it means: A door that sinks when released, or slams the last stretch closed, is a spring heading for failure.
Where to stop
Know the Limit
Never attempt to repair, adjust, wind or unwind a torsion spring. A wound spring stores enough energy to break bones and cause permanent injury, and it requires proper winding bars and training to handle safely. Do not use screwdrivers, pliers or bar stock in place of winding bars. Do not lift a door with a broken spring by hand or with the operator, because the weight is carried on cables that were never meant to hold it and a cable failure or derailment can follow. On a two-spring door, replace both: they have taken the same cycles and an odd pair leaves the lift asymmetric.
Local conditions
Why It Happens Here
Spring failures cluster by street in this city because so much of Oshawa was built in phases. Donevan is 59 per cent built between 1961 and 1980, Stevenson 57 per cent, and in the north end Taunton is 37 per cent built between 2011 and 2016 with another 33 per cent between 2006 and 2010, so doors on a given street tend to reach a spring's cycle rating within a few years of each other. Cold decides the day it happens. With a January daily mean of minus 5.0 degrees, a mean daily low of minus 8.9 and a record low of minus 32.8 at the airport station, the coldest mornings of the year are when a marginal spring finally lets go.
Questions
Common Questions
Can I use the door once or twice until it is repaired?
It is best not to, even once. With the counterbalance gone, the entire weight of the door goes through the lift cables and the operator's drive. That is how a single broken spring turns into a broken spring plus a snapped cable plus a bent track plus a stripped drive gear, which is a much larger repair. If the door is closed, leave it closed and use another entrance. If it is stuck open, keep the doorway clear of people and vehicles.
Why do springs break in winter?
Partly the steel and partly the timing. Cold steel is less tolerant of the stress a wound spring is already under, and a door with frozen snow packed against its bottom seal is heavier and harder to move, so the spring sees a higher load on exactly the morning it is least able to take it. The underlying cause is still cycle fatigue; the cold simply decides which day a spring that was already at the end of its rating actually fails.
How long should a new spring last?
Springs are rated in cycles rather than years, and a standard residential torsion spring is commonly rated near 10,000 cycles. For a household opening the door two or three times a day that generally works out somewhere between about seven and twelve years; for a household using the garage as its main entrance, considerably less. Higher-cycle springs use heavier wire and last proportionally longer, which is usually worth it on a busy door.
Related Guides
Book a technician
Fill out the form and we'll confirm your appointment by email.
Service area
Where We Work
These guides are written for Oshawa homes. If the fix is beyond a homeowner check, we work everywhere inside this area.
Map data © Google. Pin shows the service area, not a walk-in location — all work is done at your home.
From the tools
A real callout, not stock imagery.
A sectional door pulled off its tracks, taken down and supported on site so it could be checked and re-hung safely — photographed on the job.