This happened to me years ago when I was in my early twenties. I had to call into work because I couldn’t get my car out of the garage. Nobody believed me. Somewhere they probably still don’t.
Thousands of years from now, archaeologists will find your fossilized remains and theorize that you were a great monarch who was buried in your pyramid.
Usually garage doors have a handle that hangs near the opener that dislodges the door from the opener track. At that point it’s no longer stuck you can just lift the door yourself.
That's great for power outages or a busted motor.
However OPs spring broke. When the spring breaks you are now lifting the full weight of the door. My neighbors spring broke on his single car garage and it took both of us to lift the door and prop it open so he could get his car out.
Huh, we had a broken spring and I just had to lift the door with my back in a hurking, jerking motion.
Kidding on the above. It was annoying and akward but didn't require that much effort, more of a timing thing to help the motor/track.
Single door vs double wide door - mine broke last month and it's a 2 car garage with 1 door. Took me and the installer both trying pretty hard to get it open.
It depends on the age and size of the door. Majority of doors are not going to be too heavy for one guy to lift because its on wheels, once you get it off the ground you have momentum and most mid range-budget doors are gonna be standard single stall made from a aluminum and a thin hardened plastic like material if it was installed in the last 20 years. If you’ve got an older two stall garage door with wood paneling they can get pretty heavy.
Steel or aluminum doors aren't too bad to lift without this tension spring if you're strong (and depending on if it's a one or two car width door). But a wooden garage door would make Arnold struggle.
Me too! It was my second monday for this company. It took longer to clean the shit out of my pants from the explosion than it took for the garage door repair guy to show up. Apparently it always happens on a monday!
I used to live in a basement suite where the only door exit was through the garage, past the mechanical door.
One day the lifting mechanism snapped *and* jammed the tracks, so I (an adult male in decent shape) couldn't lift it an inch.
LL had us go through a window for three fucking weeks until someone came out and fixed it.
About six month before we were (illegally) evicted they removed the mechanical door and put in a regular one.
When I was a teenager that spring broke while opening a 2 car garage with opener. The door fell and the opener was partially ripped out of the ceiling. The repair man was there in a few hours but the whole thing was replaced within a week. I still remember the snapping and funky noises the spring made and the crashing of the solid wood door amazingly neither car was damaged.
I remember hearing what I thought was a gunshot go off in our garage when ours broke. Those springs are crazy dangerous, or at least for your average DIY project. 100% would not recommend
This, there 2 things in my house i won't mess with, one would be our gas water heater and the 2nd being that spring.
It's like you have a bomb set over your door frame.
never fucking unwind one by yourself... get it professionally done, cause I learned what de-gloving means I was learning about garage doors for a retail position...
Meh. I replaced a broken door spring for the first time a few years back using only YouTube tutorials and by purchasing the actual winding bars that door installers use. Had to replace the other spring about a year later. Both with no issues. If you respect the potential energy of whatever you're dealing with, you can safely do the job yourself. Saved myself about $600 doing it myself.
My gas water heater made a small explosion once.
I thought I was gonna die. I ran off for a sec, but then I decided to go turn off the gas and tell my dad.
Some students at my college made a “zero g” rig that used garage door springs to offset your weight when your strapped into the device’s harness, I left that room as fast as I could. I absolutely don’t trust a college student who’s welded 3 times in their life to strap in my body beneath a garage door spring.
Our inspector shared a tidbit that those springs have the most potential energy out of anything else in your house. After he shared a story of a section of spring doing through his garage wall after it failed i immediately bought the safety cables
I had a guy replace my springs. He was the owner of the garage door repair company and had been doing it for 30 years. His hand slipped while he was tensioning it and the bar broke every bone in his hand. I had to call the emergency squad. Also, there was blood all over my garage.
Pinned till first responders could assist in lifting it off me, guy inside the building (no power so no lights) just saw it drop and my arm and a leg so he thought i was dead lol. It was only about 20 inches above me when it dropped so thankfully not as much momentum, old wooden door too, they took it to the dump after and it was 950lbs, it landed square on my shoulder and other than being black and blue on half my body and the wind knocked out of me i just broke my scapula and got an irrantional fear of garage doors now!
Mine too. Thought someone ran into my garage door with their car from the street when I heard it snap. Thank goodness my handyman’s brother did this for a living and he came right over to replace.
My uncle owns a garage door company. It’s been amazing as I’ve lost three springs since I bought this house. Only one more and I’ll have replaced them all in 7 years.
I had to pay $1400 to get mine done. Two springs, 3 bearings, 3 hour response and repair time on a Sunday.
Annoying it needed done, but the people who did it took good care of us on short notice
When we bought our house, the spring broke on the morning we closed, BEFORE it was ours. They had to scramble to get it fixed. It was awesome and like the last good luck we had with the house
Just so everyone is aware, high tension springs are fucking dangerous as shit. DO NOT TRY AND DO IT YOURSELF LESS YOU WANNA END UP WITH MISSING FINGERS AND SHIT.
Ugh, reminds me of when it’s time to take apart the front of the 67! Those springs are huge and HIGHLY compressed. They make tools, or you could use a tow strap if 50/50 is good enough to keep them compressed while taken out or putting in.. but damn is that a nerve wracking experience. (For myself anyhow)
Worked as the parts department manager for a garage door installation and service company… the two most veteran techs both were missing part of a finger from being careless back in their early days.
Additionally, if you have a home warranty, this is covered.
- Do **NOT** under any circumstances attempt to replace your garage door springs on your own. You are quite literally risking serious injury and even death. Hire a professional who has the appropriate tools and experience.
I've done them myself before.
I wouldn't do it again.
Wasn't hard but it was half an hour on a ladder with a loaded rifle pointed at your head.
One slip and it'll throw a steel bar clean through your skull.
Can confirm. I changed mine and it was a near death experience. Tightening the spring with a pair of 2-foot long half-inch steel rods was extremely nerve wracking. I banned the rest of my family from the garage while I was doing it so I would be the only one killed.
I installed about 20 overhead doors one summer as a favor to a few businesses (Im a fabricator/welder and so would deal with installing the tracks and weatherstripping on steel channel doorways.) Its simultaneously not as dangerous as people make it seem and dangerous enough joe public homeowner should absolutely never touch it. Funny space to be in for something in the everyones home.
I also fixed my own furnace this year. Saved something like 1400 bucks. Anything that even has a whiff of risk they gouge on, but its not rocket surgery.
I’ll do all sorts of shit myself. If the risk isn’t major damage to myself, others, or our finances if something goes horrifically wrong, then why not give it a whirl.
The second the risk increases beyond the level of "slipping off a ladder maybe, if I’m committing OSHA violations", I’m paying someone else to take care of it. They know more than me, and it prevents the embarrassment of having to explain what happened if I fuck it up myself.
No. But varying tension of springs is the factor there. Your average homeowner or even contractor may not know how to read a spring gauge, have access to one or know how to properly weigh a door. Had one homeowner who guesstimated the weight of the door and was off by about 200lbs. The moment he wound those springs and let go of the torsion bar the door flew up and broke his jaw and flew off the back of the tracks. There's a lot more to it than people think.
I love how that guy is making the comment like you’ve had the garage door for two years before the springs broke and you come in here and say it’s been 45.
Typical Redditor assuming someone had an issue because they weren’t doing something correct.
And it’s really good at getting residue off of metal. Used to repair bikes and it was my go-to for cleaning handlebars when the grips needed to be replaced.
It displaces water, but is not a lubricator. WD stands for Water Displacement. Mostly to protect from rust and is also a good penetrating oil. Does not provide lubrication long term as other products are designed to do.
WD-40 is a godsend lubricant for when you just need something to work once and you can deal with it the right way later, or for getting things cleaned so you can put proper lubricant.
My dad used to exclusively lubricate the lock on our front door with WD-40. Told him it would last longer if he didn't lube it at all.
It broke, the locksmith had to drill it out to get it disassembled and the whole thing was just chock full of sandy, gritty tar.
It is more of a degreaser solvent than it is a lubricant. It will demonstrate lubricative properties in the short term, but long term it is adding to the problem. Great for getting built up grease off of something to add new lubricant later!
also a great wood finishing treatment for things that aren't supposed to have a thick coat of lacquer or other sealing agent on them, since it will pop up all the ends of the grain (letting you sand them off so they don't contribute to splintering or blisters later), and doesn't interfere with other oils or waxes.
WD-40 stands for water displacement formula number 40. It was developed for Atlas missiles, the first ICBM. These were what are called balloon missiles. To save weight and thus increase the range, the pressure tank for the propellant is also used as the outer skin of the missile. In fact they were so thin they had to be pressurized constantly to maintain their shape. To further reduce weight they were not painted, leaving the bare metal exposed.
This means the metal skin is very susceptible to rust, and catastrophic failure. Enter WD-40. It was regularly sprayed over the surface to displace the water that inevitably got in, and leave behind a very thin film to keep it out.
If you want to use it for metals tools that will sit around and you don’t want them to rust, literally nothing better for the job. However this is for the outer surface, not the hinges or bearings. There you want a lubricant, so use an actual grease or machine oil. If you want to clean something, use a solvent. Too many people use WD-40 for all of these jobs when it is only designed for the first, and has properties that will cause problems over time (namely gumming up tight tolerances, sometimes as bad as glue)
And in a few weeks it's all evaporated off and any actual lubricant that had been in place is gone and it is now worse off than it was. It gets in there and breaks things up that were causing the object to bind, but it isn't actually lubricating.
For garage door springs you want a non-graphite lubricant that is fairly thick so it doesn't drip when applied. A thin runny lubricant doesn't do any good if it's all on the floor within a few minutes of applying.
> **Myth:** WD-40 Multi-Use Product is not really a lubricant.
>
> **Fact:** While the “W-D” in WD-40 stands for Water Displacement, WD-40 Multi-Use Product is a unique, special blend of lubricants. The product’s formulation also contains anti-corrosion agents and ingredients for penetration, water displacement and soil removal.
https://www.wd40.com/myths-legends-fun-facts/
A spray can of white lithium grease does wonders and a little bit goes a long way.
Sauce: been building commercial and municipal trucks for 20+ years including box trucks and installing roll up doors.
About 18.months ago I was getting ready to leave for the morning, got in my car and hit the opener button. About 3 seconds later I heard what I thought was a pair of shotgun blasts followed by a bomb.
One spring had broken with the door 3/4 up, second spring couldn't hold it and then it blew, dropped the door and it hit hard enough to make the bottom panel a bit wavy.
Found out the entire kit, minus the motor, was original to the house. 1960.
How it lasted, I dunno, but jesus.
Happened to me randomly one evening when we were just chilling on the couch. Nobody was opening or closing the door when it broke. I was crunching on a snack when I heard what sounded like a cannon, but my crunching disabled my localization capability. My wife can’t localize for shit, so I had no idea where the sound came from. I looked everywhere for damage, even under the house, and even did some JFK shooter forensic shit like listened to audio from various security cams to get an idea of generally where the sound originated. Nothing seemed amiss with house systems, so I let it go and went to bed. Next morning, the garage door wouldn’t open. Bingo.
That spring did it's damage already. It's installing the new spring, or uninstalling old (still working) ones that kill you.
Or, not having a safety cable or rod running throught the spring.
A buddy of mine replaced the spring on his door and then ended up calling a friend who works on garage doors to fix some alignment issue.
His friend said ,"You replaced the spring yourself? With a breaker bar and some rigged system. Are you insane?"
My dad was trying to fix his with a socket extension and breaker bar. He sneezed mid turn and it shot the extension into his face. That was the day he lost all of his front teeth and the dentist told him how lucky he was it didn’t break his jaw.
A good friend has a garage door business (3rd Gen family business, at least, I think great-grandpa helped get it started, but don’t think he had ownership) and the spring was the part my friend put the fear of god into all of us to not DIY.
Everyone talks about the springs being the dangerous part, but the cables are where the real danger hides. If you don't release the spring tension and mess with the cables...we always said the red bolts holding the bottom bracket on are red to indicate you will bleed if you mess with them.
Door is down, bracket almost touching the floor, person hovering over it and releasing all of that spring tension at once through a thin cable with a hunk of metal on the end that wants to start flying right through the space your face and hands are occupying.
I work in storage and looked up how difficult these would be to change out. The first video that popped up was what a spring can do to a melon. I watched it and called my usual guy to come do the repair.
Just make the garage door into two appropriately sized doors for your new two springs. It's far too dangerous to touch the spring so modify the door instead
Yeah yours does. The garage door opener cannot pull the entire weight of the door without the assistance of the spring. When you get home, go in the garage, close the door, and look right in the center of the door, about a foot higher that the garage door track. Those are your springs.
It’s like no one here has ever actually seen a garage door. Just heard that the spring is deadly. Strange thread for sure.
The idea that he thinks his car is stuck is hilarious though.
Door will be pretty heavy with no spring. Just depends on the size of the door. Can be tricky with one person, need to prop the door up to get your car out
Had that happen to me... i was on my computer and head a loud thud come from the Garage... Went to see what it was and didn't see anything.
Next morning I go to leave for work and the door wont open....
My garage door was like solid wood and incredibly heavy. I tried to manually open it with that t handle deal and it broke right off.
I will not touch/replace these springs, and I will not touch/replace car suspension springs either. I will always outsource my danger when those need replaced. These things store enough energy to kill you.
You’re definitely spot on with garage springs. Those can kill most of us DIY folks. Car springs I do regularly, they aren’t anywhere near as unsafe as these.
I just had this happen to me. Thought something exploded in front of my house. That was late at night so next day I called a company for repair. They had a tech at my house working on it within 30 minutes. No joke, 30 minutes. He has the spring replaced and was out the door within another 30 minutes. I have never been more impressed with a repair company in my life.
There should be a mechanical release on the opener and you can manually lift the door. It'll probably be heavy AF without the spring helping. But I believe in you. Have a stick or 2x4 handy to block it from falling back down so you can get the car out.
My parents garage door spring snapped. I tried lifting the damn door but man it felt like it was 500 lbs. They got a guy to come out and replace the spring because there was no way my dad was going to touch that thing based on how dangerous they are.
Thats about the bes outcome of a garage door spring breaking. The door could have fallen on you or your car, or the spring couldve come flying at 100mph at you or your car.
Right around this time last year this happened to us. If memory serves it was mid afternoon on July 3. I call the shop that installed it a decade before and they couldn't get a repair crew out but there was a salesman who did power lifting as a hobby. They sent him out to hold the door open so I could move the cars out. Then on the 5th or 6th they had a repair crew out to fix it.
That door was heavy. 2 cars and insulated. Probably a good 200 or 300 lbs.
When this happened to me I learning that if I deadlifted the door while the garage door opener was also pulling, we had enough to get the door open. Not easy though lol.
Oh here we go... "Don't even think about changing that yourself!"
Really, if you have the right tools and follow the right procedure, it is not difficult. It has dangers as much as other DIY tasks if you do something stupid. If you can't trust yourself to not do something stupid, call a professional. I'm more afraid of table saw kickbacks.
Don't fuck with it, if it!!! If it's a single car garage it may only have 1 spring, double car garage doors will have 2, so the other spring is still under tension. Also the doors have cables running from pulleys at both sides of the door, attached to the bottom section, these are also very dangerous Definitely a job for professionals!!
Source: Used to repair and install garage doors.
Side note: All sectional doors have springs, the openers are only designed to lift balanced doors.
What is an average cost to replace two springs and do alignment for a two-car garage door if you don’t mind my asking?
I need to get mine repaired and was going to DIY the two spring replacements, but this thread has helped me decide against that lol.
I tend to DIY almost everything because I just don’t want to get screwed on the replacement/labor costs.
I don’t mind paying people fair wages for their work though and this seems like one of the times I should let the pros do their thing.
springs have been over $300, closer to $400 in our experience on a 16x8 door. they’ll need to replace both springs. our invoice for a spring replacement may 2023 was $375 from a local company. it’s not worth the danger of DIYing springs, even if they can replace them within only 30 minutes.
damn, I feel you… I haven’t been able to leave the house today either due to the garage door wheel falling off the track :/ my husband has the tool box in his car and he’s been helping a friend move all day.
Last happened to me on Dec 23. Thankfully on returning home… one vehicle was stuck outside and the other inside. Added bonus… battery on the outside vehicle died on the 24th. Jump start from my battery charger, pickup a new battery on the way, swap in in-laws driveway.
Took a few days to get the garage door fixed.
I had a spring snap. It broke really close to the center and hardly had a gap. Didn’t notice for a long time. Like months. Called a repair man up when I noticed. Turns out my old motor was strong enough to lift my garage with just one spring. Still dangerous when I think about it.
This just happened to us. Snap and boing! First guy wanted $450. I said no. Next guy wanted $350+150 to do it. I laughed. Next guy came and did it for $350 including springs made in the USA guaranteed to last 20 years. We'll see.
I remember before 2019 it cost us $170 to fix them. Inflation is crazy.
Cost will depend on how much somebody wants to get paid plus company overhead. Mine just broke recently so I watched a quick YouTube video, ordered a spring and tool for $75.00 and spent an hour and did it myself.
I used to work for an ambulance company and it's constant opening and closing of big garage doors.
I've had the pleasure of being in the garage 2 separate times when one of those broke. It was one of the scariest sounds I've heard. Something about it made me want to get down and cover my vital bits.
Repaired quickly but heard it's expensive. I just had to report the issue and thankfully not deal with it.
You can still open the garage door by hand without the spring. If you have a garage door opener you may need to disengage the belt or chain by pulling on the cord dangling down from the motor.
Ha, my spring broke Thursday morning, we can't get one in town either.
We do have two doors, so my husband was able to shimmy the car out, thank goodness.
I wish you luck with having the spring in your town.
Does it have a pull cable in the middle near the main machine? Usually there is a pull cable that will release the mechanical part so you can still open and close it like a normal door for this exact reason. Just make sure you put it back in when it's fixed, otherwise it won't open or close from the door from the auto door opener.
I closed my garage door around this time last year and went back that night and it wouldn't open up to find this, found out 15 minutes after I closed it the spring exploded because I have some cameras out there. I wouldn't still be owning those pants if I was standing in there when it happened from what I saw. Luckily my motorcycle didn't take any shrapnel from it and a local garage door guy and his son were able to replace it relatively cheap
The exact thing happened to me two weeks ago. Cost over $650 for the guy to replace the spring, change out two thin cables and apply lubricant to the rollers. $650 for 1 hour of work. Not bad. Didn’t even break a sweat. I did, when writing out the check but he sure didn’t.
Every now and then some fool gets killed in particularly gruesome ways by those springs when they fuck with them or try to replace them without the proper training and tools
This happened to me today. Garage door guy said if you lift the door while someone else hits the opener, you can get the door up.
Just did it to get my wife’s car out of the garage. Then just help support the door on the way down so it doesn’t slam.
Getting new springs on Monday.
I’ve stupidly re-tensioned one of these on my parents door by myself with the handle of a socket wrench…..get a professional to do it, it’s far safer that way.
I replaced mine 5 years ago by myself after watching you tube videos and it took about 3 hours only because I was 55 at the time and I wasn't in a hurry either..Still works as it should to this day..
lol
Give it a couple more generations and we won’t be able to find people who will train in this stuff
The world will end through a lack of ability lol
How sad
This happened to me recently and the door did the pulleys, cabling and mounts on the way down, so all had to be replaced. Ended up being putting massive springs on in hopes that it will never happen again, but the fix was $$$$. We have hurricane doors here, so the door itself easily weighs several hundred pounds.
We had one go randomly while sitting in the living room, sounded like a gunshot or bomb going off... funnily enough, a friend we had over had her boyfriend with her and he just goes, 'oh dont worry about it, i have a spare spring in my truck, ill fix it for you', and he did it right then and there.
My question being, who just randomly has garage door springs with them?
We were super greatful though.
I have a two car garage and the company that built the subdivision used lowest bidder to install the garage doors. All came with one spring instead of two. Had to replace the broken one, install supports on the doors too because it was trying to collapse into itself and looked like someone wrecked into the door.
This happened to me years ago when I was in my early twenties. I had to call into work because I couldn’t get my car out of the garage. Nobody believed me. Somewhere they probably still don’t.
They are still waiting for you
Some say he’s still stuck in his garage to this day!
But in the end, the garage was inside him all along.
Still ridin' on the MTA! (Kingston Trio for those who haven't heard of this one)
Through the open window she hands Charlie a sandwich as the train comes rumbling though. Hand him a fucking nickel dammit!
Thousands of years from now, archaeologists will find your fossilized remains and theorize that you were a great monarch who was buried in your pyramid.
That really is a great comment!
Legend has it, he never made it out.
I remember you, you always had some sort of excuse not to show up!
Mrs. Margaret? I thought you died in 2007!
Bro how many times we gotta go over this, if you don't see the body your nemesis ain't dead
And if this body is naked and warm?
Sir I think you're in the wrong genre
I think I work with him now.
Usually garage doors have a handle that hangs near the opener that dislodges the door from the opener track. At that point it’s no longer stuck you can just lift the door yourself.
That's great for power outages or a busted motor. However OPs spring broke. When the spring breaks you are now lifting the full weight of the door. My neighbors spring broke on his single car garage and it took both of us to lift the door and prop it open so he could get his car out.
Huh, we had a broken spring and I just had to lift the door with my back in a hurking, jerking motion. Kidding on the above. It was annoying and akward but didn't require that much effort, more of a timing thing to help the motor/track.
There are hollow doors and there are solid doors on rusty old crooked tracks. Very different, effort-wise.
Single door vs double wide door - mine broke last month and it's a 2 car garage with 1 door. Took me and the installer both trying pretty hard to get it open.
It depends on the age and size of the door. Majority of doors are not going to be too heavy for one guy to lift because its on wheels, once you get it off the ground you have momentum and most mid range-budget doors are gonna be standard single stall made from a aluminum and a thin hardened plastic like material if it was installed in the last 20 years. If you’ve got an older two stall garage door with wood paneling they can get pretty heavy.
Steel or aluminum doors aren't too bad to lift without this tension spring if you're strong (and depending on if it's a one or two car width door). But a wooden garage door would make Arnold struggle.
Me too! It was my second monday for this company. It took longer to clean the shit out of my pants from the explosion than it took for the garage door repair guy to show up. Apparently it always happens on a monday!
I used to live in a basement suite where the only door exit was through the garage, past the mechanical door. One day the lifting mechanism snapped *and* jammed the tracks, so I (an adult male in decent shape) couldn't lift it an inch. LL had us go through a window for three fucking weeks until someone came out and fixed it. About six month before we were (illegally) evicted they removed the mechanical door and put in a regular one.
When I was a teenager that spring broke while opening a 2 car garage with opener. The door fell and the opener was partially ripped out of the ceiling. The repair man was there in a few hours but the whole thing was replaced within a week. I still remember the snapping and funky noises the spring made and the crashing of the solid wood door amazingly neither car was damaged.
I remember hearing what I thought was a gunshot go off in our garage when ours broke. Those springs are crazy dangerous, or at least for your average DIY project. 100% would not recommend
This, there 2 things in my house i won't mess with, one would be our gas water heater and the 2nd being that spring. It's like you have a bomb set over your door frame.
I’ve replaced a gas water heater and would do it again. I wouldn’t fucking touch a garage door spring, though.
never fucking unwind one by yourself... get it professionally done, cause I learned what de-gloving means I was learning about garage doors for a retail position...
Meh. I replaced a broken door spring for the first time a few years back using only YouTube tutorials and by purchasing the actual winding bars that door installers use. Had to replace the other spring about a year later. Both with no issues. If you respect the potential energy of whatever you're dealing with, you can safely do the job yourself. Saved myself about $600 doing it myself.
Same here. Go slow and be methodical so you don’t accidentally let go and you’ll be fine. Having the proper tools makes all the difference.
My gas water heater made a small explosion once. I thought I was gonna die. I ran off for a sec, but then I decided to go turn off the gas and tell my dad.
Same policies for me. Those babies get the special treatment, not the normal cussing and percussive engineering from me.
Some students at my college made a “zero g” rig that used garage door springs to offset your weight when your strapped into the device’s harness, I left that room as fast as I could. I absolutely don’t trust a college student who’s welded 3 times in their life to strap in my body beneath a garage door spring.
Our inspector shared a tidbit that those springs have the most potential energy out of anything else in your house. After he shared a story of a section of spring doing through his garage wall after it failed i immediately bought the safety cables
I had a guy replace my springs. He was the owner of the garage door repair company and had been doing it for 30 years. His hand slipped while he was tensioning it and the bar broke every bone in his hand. I had to call the emergency squad. Also, there was blood all over my garage.
Was walking under a large shop door when the spring snapped, dropped a 11x14 door on me in a second
Where is the rest of your story, as it obvious you survived?
Pinned till first responders could assist in lifting it off me, guy inside the building (no power so no lights) just saw it drop and my arm and a leg so he thought i was dead lol. It was only about 20 inches above me when it dropped so thankfully not as much momentum, old wooden door too, they took it to the dump after and it was 950lbs, it landed square on my shoulder and other than being black and blue on half my body and the wind knocked out of me i just broke my scapula and got an irrantional fear of garage doors now!
Always use the man door OSHA
For future reference, folks, just spray a little spring lubricant on these things every few months, and they’ll last a whole lot longer.
Good advice. Though this one lasted 45 years so not bad
For a spring rated for 10 years, that's a hell of a run. Mine went out at 13 years
Mine too. Thought someone ran into my garage door with their car from the street when I heard it snap. Thank goodness my handyman’s brother did this for a living and he came right over to replace.
My uncle owns a garage door company. It’s been amazing as I’ve lost three springs since I bought this house. Only one more and I’ll have replaced them all in 7 years.
You have 4 garage doors?
Some have multiple springs. Mine has 2 on a single door
I had to pay $1400 to get mine done. Two springs, 3 bearings, 3 hour response and repair time on a Sunday. Annoying it needed done, but the people who did it took good care of us on short notice
When we bought our house, the spring broke on the morning we closed, BEFORE it was ours. They had to scramble to get it fixed. It was awesome and like the last good luck we had with the house
I'm sorry. I do this for a living. Two springs and 3 bearings? Who did you call? Overhead?
Just so everyone is aware, high tension springs are fucking dangerous as shit. DO NOT TRY AND DO IT YOURSELF LESS YOU WANNA END UP WITH MISSING FINGERS AND SHIT. 
Ugh, reminds me of when it’s time to take apart the front of the 67! Those springs are huge and HIGHLY compressed. They make tools, or you could use a tow strap if 50/50 is good enough to keep them compressed while taken out or putting in.. but damn is that a nerve wracking experience. (For myself anyhow)
Worked as the parts department manager for a garage door installation and service company… the two most veteran techs both were missing part of a finger from being careless back in their early days.
Like Aircraft Carrier arresting cables. You don't want to FAFO.
holy shit. I seen one of those lines fuck somebody up horribly. Like turned buddy into a salad almost instantly
I worked in a shop with 12 or 14 foot single bay insulated overhead doors. One of those springs snapped one day and it was loud.
They truly don't make them like they used to. Still good advice to follow. Spray your hinges and wheels too, not just the springs
Additionally, if you have a home warranty, this is covered. - Do **NOT** under any circumstances attempt to replace your garage door springs on your own. You are quite literally risking serious injury and even death. Hire a professional who has the appropriate tools and experience.
I've done them myself before. I wouldn't do it again. Wasn't hard but it was half an hour on a ladder with a loaded rifle pointed at your head. One slip and it'll throw a steel bar clean through your skull.
Can confirm. I changed mine and it was a near death experience. Tightening the spring with a pair of 2-foot long half-inch steel rods was extremely nerve wracking. I banned the rest of my family from the garage while I was doing it so I would be the only one killed.
I installed about 20 overhead doors one summer as a favor to a few businesses (Im a fabricator/welder and so would deal with installing the tracks and weatherstripping on steel channel doorways.) Its simultaneously not as dangerous as people make it seem and dangerous enough joe public homeowner should absolutely never touch it. Funny space to be in for something in the everyones home. I also fixed my own furnace this year. Saved something like 1400 bucks. Anything that even has a whiff of risk they gouge on, but its not rocket surgery.
I’ll do all sorts of shit myself. If the risk isn’t major damage to myself, others, or our finances if something goes horrifically wrong, then why not give it a whirl. The second the risk increases beyond the level of "slipping off a ladder maybe, if I’m committing OSHA violations", I’m paying someone else to take care of it. They know more than me, and it prevents the embarrassment of having to explain what happened if I fuck it up myself.
The equation for risk versus just paying someone to deal with it doesn't work out that well for overhead door springs.
No. But varying tension of springs is the factor there. Your average homeowner or even contractor may not know how to read a spring gauge, have access to one or know how to properly weigh a door. Had one homeowner who guesstimated the weight of the door and was off by about 200lbs. The moment he wound those springs and let go of the torsion bar the door flew up and broke his jaw and flew off the back of the tracks. There's a lot more to it than people think.
Saw this happen in person. Contractor’s elbow was shattered.
Mine did this this spring. Original springs from 1972 on a solid wood garage door, it’s amazing how long they lasted.
I love how that guy is making the comment like you’ve had the garage door for two years before the springs broke and you come in here and say it’s been 45. Typical Redditor assuming someone had an issue because they weren’t doing something correct.
Just to piggy back, because inevitably someone will see this and do this, WD-40 doesn’t count.
And for the people in the back, WD-40 IS NOT A LUBRICANT
EXCEPT FOR THE VARIOUS LUBRICANTS THAT THEY ALSO SELL, BUT YOU'RE RIGHT MOST PEOPLE TREAT IT AS THOUGH THEIR FLAGSHIP PRODUCT IS A LUBRICANT.
Well, what is it then?
Water Displacement 40. It removes water and then evaporates. It is temporarily a lubricant before it evaporates.
And it’s really good at getting residue off of metal. Used to repair bikes and it was my go-to for cleaning handlebars when the grips needed to be replaced.
It's also excellent at removing beach tar from your feet.
What were WD 1 through 39?
It displaces water, but is not a lubricator. WD stands for Water Displacement. Mostly to protect from rust and is also a good penetrating oil. Does not provide lubrication long term as other products are designed to do.
WD-40 is a godsend lubricant for when you just need something to work once and you can deal with it the right way later, or for getting things cleaned so you can put proper lubricant. My dad used to exclusively lubricate the lock on our front door with WD-40. Told him it would last longer if he didn't lube it at all. It broke, the locksmith had to drill it out to get it disassembled and the whole thing was just chock full of sandy, gritty tar.
It is more of a degreaser solvent than it is a lubricant. It will demonstrate lubricative properties in the short term, but long term it is adding to the problem. Great for getting built up grease off of something to add new lubricant later!
also a great wood finishing treatment for things that aren't supposed to have a thick coat of lacquer or other sealing agent on them, since it will pop up all the ends of the grain (letting you sand them off so they don't contribute to splintering or blisters later), and doesn't interfere with other oils or waxes.
Huh, who knew! ? Thanks for that.
It's a solvent. It cleans the area which usually helps it move more freely as a result.
Water Displacement liquid, originally designed for rust prevention in aerospace industry. It's an oil but not made for being a lubricant.
WD-40 stands for water displacement formula number 40. It was developed for Atlas missiles, the first ICBM. These were what are called balloon missiles. To save weight and thus increase the range, the pressure tank for the propellant is also used as the outer skin of the missile. In fact they were so thin they had to be pressurized constantly to maintain their shape. To further reduce weight they were not painted, leaving the bare metal exposed. This means the metal skin is very susceptible to rust, and catastrophic failure. Enter WD-40. It was regularly sprayed over the surface to displace the water that inevitably got in, and leave behind a very thin film to keep it out. If you want to use it for metals tools that will sit around and you don’t want them to rust, literally nothing better for the job. However this is for the outer surface, not the hinges or bearings. There you want a lubricant, so use an actual grease or machine oil. If you want to clean something, use a solvent. Too many people use WD-40 for all of these jobs when it is only designed for the first, and has properties that will cause problems over time (namely gumming up tight tolerances, sometimes as bad as glue)
Penetrating oil
IT SURE FEELS LIKE A LUBRICANT TO ME. IT'S ALL SLIPPERY AND SHIT
THATS WHAT SHE SAID
And in a few weeks it's all evaporated off and any actual lubricant that had been in place is gone and it is now worse off than it was. It gets in there and breaks things up that were causing the object to bind, but it isn't actually lubricating. For garage door springs you want a non-graphite lubricant that is fairly thick so it doesn't drip when applied. A thin runny lubricant doesn't do any good if it's all on the floor within a few minutes of applying.
WD-40 is not a lubricant for the back of people
> **Myth:** WD-40 Multi-Use Product is not really a lubricant. > > **Fact:** While the “W-D” in WD-40 stands for Water Displacement, WD-40 Multi-Use Product is a unique, special blend of lubricants. The product’s formulation also contains anti-corrosion agents and ingredients for penetration, water displacement and soil removal. https://www.wd40.com/myths-legends-fun-facts/
A spray can of white lithium grease does wonders and a little bit goes a long way. Sauce: been building commercial and municipal trucks for 20+ years including box trucks and installing roll up doors.
Is three one you recommend?
I've had 2 of those break while I was just sitting in the garage with the door closed, shits loud
About 18.months ago I was getting ready to leave for the morning, got in my car and hit the opener button. About 3 seconds later I heard what I thought was a pair of shotgun blasts followed by a bomb. One spring had broken with the door 3/4 up, second spring couldn't hold it and then it blew, dropped the door and it hit hard enough to make the bottom panel a bit wavy. Found out the entire kit, minus the motor, was original to the house. 1960. How it lasted, I dunno, but jesus.
Happened to me randomly one evening when we were just chilling on the couch. Nobody was opening or closing the door when it broke. I was crunching on a snack when I heard what sounded like a cannon, but my crunching disabled my localization capability. My wife can’t localize for shit, so I had no idea where the sound came from. I looked everywhere for damage, even under the house, and even did some JFK shooter forensic shit like listened to audio from various security cams to get an idea of generally where the sound originated. Nothing seemed amiss with house systems, so I let it go and went to bed. Next morning, the garage door wouldn’t open. Bingo.
Just JB Weld the spring back together.
flex seal will do
Head on, apply directly to the forehead.
Get a professional and stay away from that Damaged springs can kill you
That spring did it's damage already. It's installing the new spring, or uninstalling old (still working) ones that kill you. Or, not having a safety cable or rod running throught the spring.
A buddy of mine replaced the spring on his door and then ended up calling a friend who works on garage doors to fix some alignment issue. His friend said ,"You replaced the spring yourself? With a breaker bar and some rigged system. Are you insane?"
My dad was trying to fix his with a socket extension and breaker bar. He sneezed mid turn and it shot the extension into his face. That was the day he lost all of his front teeth and the dentist told him how lucky he was it didn’t break his jaw.
A good friend has a garage door business (3rd Gen family business, at least, I think great-grandpa helped get it started, but don’t think he had ownership) and the spring was the part my friend put the fear of god into all of us to not DIY.
Springs under compression are dangerous. This spring is not under compression. It's just a roll of metal now.
Everyone talks about the springs being the dangerous part, but the cables are where the real danger hides. If you don't release the spring tension and mess with the cables...we always said the red bolts holding the bottom bracket on are red to indicate you will bleed if you mess with them. Door is down, bracket almost touching the floor, person hovering over it and releasing all of that spring tension at once through a thin cable with a hunk of metal on the end that wants to start flying right through the space your face and hands are occupying.
I work in storage and looked up how difficult these would be to change out. The first video that popped up was what a spring can do to a melon. I watched it and called my usual guy to come do the repair.
He just got here!
Tell him it is dangerous and he should hire somebody else to do the work.
Just make the garage door into two appropriately sized doors for your new two springs. It's far too dangerous to touch the spring so modify the door instead
Ditto. I'll do almost any home repairs. But I won't do that! Sorry, had to quote Meatloaf. Garage springs are just not something to mess with.
I mean it’s already de-energized now so not really a big deal.
All the energy has leaked out through the break.
That spring isn’t dangerous, it’s already dumped it’s energy,
My uncle broke his hand trying to change one. He was using screw driver to tension the spring
I did my own springs and I would not do it again. Hire a professional and then stay the heck back when they are working on it.
https://i.redd.it/97ijvexg0k9d1.gif
Oh jeeze, it's springy! We're all gonna die! I'll never wish for a world without springs again.
I will work on anything in my house, electrical, plumbing, gas, roofing, etc, but I won’t touch a garage door spring.
How can a broken spring kill you?? All that potential energy is gone, there’s only danger with unbroken springs.
I’ve got friends that install garage doors for a living. They call these “death springs.” For good reason. Because they’ll kill you.
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They either have a spring or a torsion tube.
Torsion tube has a spring inside. So to answer their question, yes they all have springs.
Don’t think so, mine doesn’t. it has a ceiling mounted winch thing that pulls it up along a track. no springs
Everyone's garage door has the winch machine. The machine isn't very strong though so there's a spring to assist it.
Yeah yours does. The garage door opener cannot pull the entire weight of the door without the assistance of the spring. When you get home, go in the garage, close the door, and look right in the center of the door, about a foot higher that the garage door track. Those are your springs.
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Mine has both. The spring balance the weight of the door. The garage door opener/closer opens and closes the door, oddly enough.
This is how mine works but I guarantee it has springs.
Bet that bitch was loud
I was right next to it. Thought an animal ran into the door
Wow
I’ve never heard a spring break but I’ve been told it sounds like a gun going off
FYI this is the one thing you do not DIY
You know that you can just pull the cord, disengaging the door from the track, and then raise the garage door by hand, right?
It’s like no one here has ever actually seen a garage door. Just heard that the spring is deadly. Strange thread for sure. The idea that he thinks his car is stuck is hilarious though.
I hope he's sitting in the garage sad about it and reads these comments, which then frees him from his entrapment, thereby enabling a great day.
I was honestly second guessing myself at first wondering if the spring failing somehow prevents the door from beIng manually opened.
Door will be pretty heavy with no spring. Just depends on the size of the door. Can be tricky with one person, need to prop the door up to get your car out
Can’t believe this doesn’t have 1k upvotes.
They're too busy posting on reddit from where they're trapped in their garages to upvote
Had that happen to me... i was on my computer and head a loud thud come from the Garage... Went to see what it was and didn't see anything. Next morning I go to leave for work and the door wont open.... My garage door was like solid wood and incredibly heavy. I tried to manually open it with that t handle deal and it broke right off.
I will not touch/replace these springs, and I will not touch/replace car suspension springs either. I will always outsource my danger when those need replaced. These things store enough energy to kill you.
You’re definitely spot on with garage springs. Those can kill most of us DIY folks. Car springs I do regularly, they aren’t anywhere near as unsafe as these.
Did you hear it snap? That’s a sound you don’t forget.
Yep was right next to it unloading the trunk. Thought an animal ran into the door outside.
Lift with your back
I just had this happen to me. Thought something exploded in front of my house. That was late at night so next day I called a company for repair. They had a tech at my house working on it within 30 minutes. No joke, 30 minutes. He has the spring replaced and was out the door within another 30 minutes. I have never been more impressed with a repair company in my life.
You know you can lift the door manually.
There should be a mechanical release on the opener and you can manually lift the door. It'll probably be heavy AF without the spring helping. But I believe in you. Have a stick or 2x4 handy to block it from falling back down so you can get the car out.
My parents garage door spring snapped. I tried lifting the damn door but man it felt like it was 500 lbs. They got a guy to come out and replace the spring because there was no way my dad was going to touch that thing based on how dangerous they are.
I literally had this exact problem fixed yesterday. Mine looked just like that.
OMG I hate this. And it’s so expensive to fix. So sorry OP.
Don't fuck with them. They hurt and kill.
Ahh good memories replacing two of these with my dad. We had all our hockey gear on in case the new one popped while putting it in.
My old two car garage door was heavy and made of solid wood. New, garage door is made of lighter and cheaper material.
Thats about the bes outcome of a garage door spring breaking. The door could have fallen on you or your car, or the spring couldve come flying at 100mph at you or your car.
I feel you, op. I hate when some thing is in some kind of state.
Right around this time last year this happened to us. If memory serves it was mid afternoon on July 3. I call the shop that installed it a decade before and they couldn't get a repair crew out but there was a salesman who did power lifting as a hobby. They sent him out to hold the door open so I could move the cars out. Then on the 5th or 6th they had a repair crew out to fix it. That door was heavy. 2 cars and insulated. Probably a good 200 or 300 lbs.
When this happened to me I learning that if I deadlifted the door while the garage door opener was also pulling, we had enough to get the door open. Not easy though lol.
Oh here we go... "Don't even think about changing that yourself!" Really, if you have the right tools and follow the right procedure, it is not difficult. It has dangers as much as other DIY tasks if you do something stupid. If you can't trust yourself to not do something stupid, call a professional. I'm more afraid of table saw kickbacks.
It's always fun when that happens. I think I used a step ladder to prop mine open so I could get my car out.
Don't fuck with it, if it!!! If it's a single car garage it may only have 1 spring, double car garage doors will have 2, so the other spring is still under tension. Also the doors have cables running from pulleys at both sides of the door, attached to the bottom section, these are also very dangerous Definitely a job for professionals!! Source: Used to repair and install garage doors. Side note: All sectional doors have springs, the openers are only designed to lift balanced doors.
What is an average cost to replace two springs and do alignment for a two-car garage door if you don’t mind my asking? I need to get mine repaired and was going to DIY the two spring replacements, but this thread has helped me decide against that lol. I tend to DIY almost everything because I just don’t want to get screwed on the replacement/labor costs. I don’t mind paying people fair wages for their work though and this seems like one of the times I should let the pros do their thing.
I couldn't say, haven't been in the industry for many years..
springs have been over $300, closer to $400 in our experience on a 16x8 door. they’ll need to replace both springs. our invoice for a spring replacement may 2023 was $375 from a local company. it’s not worth the danger of DIYing springs, even if they can replace them within only 30 minutes.
I thought this was the what movie is it sub and I scrolled through way too many comments before I figured out it wasn’t.
damn, I feel you… I haven’t been able to leave the house today either due to the garage door wheel falling off the track :/ my husband has the tool box in his car and he’s been helping a friend move all day.
Last happened to me on Dec 23. Thankfully on returning home… one vehicle was stuck outside and the other inside. Added bonus… battery on the outside vehicle died on the 24th. Jump start from my battery charger, pickup a new battery on the way, swap in in-laws driveway. Took a few days to get the garage door fixed.
Spring broke on my garage a few years ago and it sounded like a bomb went off. The amount of energy stored in those is insane
Mine went out weds. Must be a big spring conspiracy.
I had a spring snap. It broke really close to the center and hardly had a gap. Didn’t notice for a long time. Like months. Called a repair man up when I noticed. Turns out my old motor was strong enough to lift my garage with just one spring. Still dangerous when I think about it.
This just happened to us. Snap and boing! First guy wanted $450. I said no. Next guy wanted $350+150 to do it. I laughed. Next guy came and did it for $350 including springs made in the USA guaranteed to last 20 years. We'll see. I remember before 2019 it cost us $170 to fix them. Inflation is crazy.
Yep 370 for us, but i figured he got it done same day so im not shopping around.
Cost will depend on how much somebody wants to get paid plus company overhead. Mine just broke recently so I watched a quick YouTube video, ordered a spring and tool for $75.00 and spent an hour and did it myself.
Just ask a friendly neighborhood hulk to open the door.
I used to work for an ambulance company and it's constant opening and closing of big garage doors. I've had the pleasure of being in the garage 2 separate times when one of those broke. It was one of the scariest sounds I've heard. Something about it made me want to get down and cover my vital bits. Repaired quickly but heard it's expensive. I just had to report the issue and thankfully not deal with it.
You can still open the garage door by hand without the spring. If you have a garage door opener you may need to disengage the belt or chain by pulling on the cord dangling down from the motor.
Ha, my spring broke Thursday morning, we can't get one in town either. We do have two doors, so my husband was able to shimmy the car out, thank goodness. I wish you luck with having the spring in your town.
The spring on my garage door snapped one time while I was in the garage working. Damn thing sounded like a shotgun fired off right beside my ear.
Just replaced this at my mom's a few days ago. $300 and TBH I was expecting it to be more.
Does it have a pull cable in the middle near the main machine? Usually there is a pull cable that will release the mechanical part so you can still open and close it like a normal door for this exact reason. Just make sure you put it back in when it's fixed, otherwise it won't open or close from the door from the auto door opener.
One side is broken for me right now. Still opens!
I closed my garage door around this time last year and went back that night and it wouldn't open up to find this, found out 15 minutes after I closed it the spring exploded because I have some cameras out there. I wouldn't still be owning those pants if I was standing in there when it happened from what I saw. Luckily my motorcycle didn't take any shrapnel from it and a local garage door guy and his son were able to replace it relatively cheap
Oh just climb up there and fix it. No possible way anything bad can happen /s
The exact thing happened to me two weeks ago. Cost over $650 for the guy to replace the spring, change out two thin cables and apply lubricant to the rollers. $650 for 1 hour of work. Not bad. Didn’t even break a sweat. I did, when writing out the check but he sure didn’t.
Every now and then some fool gets killed in particularly gruesome ways by those springs when they fuck with them or try to replace them without the proper training and tools
been there twice over the 30 years I have own homes.
Yup but everything ways a. Ton to be now and hurts to just try
I've seen those springs (especially the older types) wreck whole walls and joists.
This happened to me today. Garage door guy said if you lift the door while someone else hits the opener, you can get the door up. Just did it to get my wife’s car out of the garage. Then just help support the door on the way down so it doesn’t slam. Getting new springs on Monday.
I’ve stupidly re-tensioned one of these on my parents door by myself with the handle of a socket wrench…..get a professional to do it, it’s far safer that way.
I replaced mine 5 years ago by myself after watching you tube videos and it took about 3 hours only because I was 55 at the time and I wasn't in a hurry either..Still works as it should to this day..
lol Give it a couple more generations and we won’t be able to find people who will train in this stuff The world will end through a lack of ability lol How sad
This happened to me recently and the door did the pulleys, cabling and mounts on the way down, so all had to be replaced. Ended up being putting massive springs on in hopes that it will never happen again, but the fix was $$$$. We have hurricane doors here, so the door itself easily weighs several hundred pounds.
Does Boeing have anything to do with this?
I’m no whistle blower
We had one go randomly while sitting in the living room, sounded like a gunshot or bomb going off... funnily enough, a friend we had over had her boyfriend with her and he just goes, 'oh dont worry about it, i have a spare spring in my truck, ill fix it for you', and he did it right then and there. My question being, who just randomly has garage door springs with them? We were super greatful though.
This happened to me before. The sound this makes is so loud!!!
I have a two car garage and the company that built the subdivision used lowest bidder to install the garage doors. All came with one spring instead of two. Had to replace the broken one, install supports on the doors too because it was trying to collapse into itself and looked like someone wrecked into the door.
I own Garage door installation/repair company. Springs never break at a good time. Glad you got it taken care of!