If you have ever been sitting at the kitchen table when the garage suddenly went off like a small firearm, that is a broken garage door spring. People describe the sound different ways: a gunshot, a cannon, a thunder-clap, a door slamming hard enough to shake the whole house. They all mean the same thing.
We get this call a couple times a week around North Richland Hills, and it is almost always the same conversation. So here is the short version, the kind of explanation we would give a neighbor over the fence.
What a broken garage door spring sounds like
A torsion spring failure is loud, sudden, and finite. One pop. Not grinding, not squealing, not a series of clicks. Just a single sharp bang, often followed by a dull metallic settling sound as the cables and hardware redistribute the load.
It is loud enough that most homeowners in Keller, Bedford, and Hurst think something fell or someone tried to break in. The first thing to do, after you have checked nobody is hurt, is look at the top of the garage door. The torsion spring is the long metal coil mounted across the wall above the door. If you see a clear two-inch gap in the spring where the coil used to be continuous, that is your culprit.
Garage door spring will not open the door, what is happening
The next time someone tries to use the door, things get strange:
- The opener strains, hums, and the door barely lifts an inch, or does not move at all.
- If you try to lift the door by hand, it now weighs a lot. A standard double garage door weighs around 250 to 400 pounds, and the springs are what make it feel manageable. Without them, you are lifting all of that.
- The door may have come down crooked, with one side lower than the other.
- You may see a frayed cable hanging loose if the spring failure also took out a cable.
What not to do after a garage door spring breaks
Three things, in order of how often we see them:
- Do not keep operating the opener. Pressing the button repeatedly to "force" the door damages the opener gears, the rail, and sometimes the door itself. The opener was sized to assist the springs, not lift the whole door alone.
- Do not try to replace the spring yourself. Torsion springs hold several hundred pounds of stored force. A wrong move puts the spring through your hand, your face, or the windshield of your car. This is the single most common DIY garage-door injury, and it happens to people who think they know what they are doing.
- Do not drive your car out by lifting the door manually with the opener disengaged. Even if two adults can muscle it open, holding it in the air while a car drives under is asking for a panel to come down on someone. Sit tight and call us.
How we replace a broken garage door spring
Most spring jobs we wrap up in 60 to 90 minutes once we are on site. We replace torsion springs in matched pairs, even if only one broke. The reason: both springs are the same age and have lived the same life, so the unbroken one is days, weeks, or a couple of months from going. Replacing only one is the kind of "savings" that costs you a second service call.
While we are in there, we rebalance the door, check the cables and bearings, and make sure the opener was not damaged from struggling against the failure. If you want the longer write-up of how this works and what it costs, that is on our garage door spring replacement page.
How long do garage door springs last?
Standard residential springs are rated around 10,000 cycles, which works out to roughly 7 years for an average household. If you are running multiple cars in and out all day, or you have got teenagers, you will see them last more like 4 to 5 years. We can install higher-cycle springs (15K or 25K rated) if you are a heavy user. They cost a little more up front and last a lot longer.
Frequently asked questions
Can I drive my car out by manually lifting the door?
If both springs are broken, no. The door is essentially a 300-pound dead weight and you do not want it coming down on a vehicle. If only one spring broke, sometimes two adults can carefully lift it, but you should clamp the door open with vise grips on the tracks before driving under it. Honestly: just call us, we will be there fast.
Why does the same spring keep breaking?
Usually because somebody only replaced the broken one and the other one is now overloaded. The matched-pair rule is not a sales pitch, it is basic physics on a balanced door.
Is this covered by my home warranty?
Sometimes. Many home warranties cover garage doors but not the springs themselves, which they classify as "wear items." Worth a phone call to your warranty company before we come out.
If this is happening to you right now
Give us a call at (817) 789-7039. We are North Richland Hills based, we cover all of the mid-cities (Keller, Hurst, Bedford, Watauga, Colleyville, Southlake), and we try to get out same-day for spring failures since you are probably stuck in or out of your garage.