Did your garage door break recently? If so, do you know which part is broken and who to call to get it fixed? While garage doors are usually quite maintenance free, they can potentially break just like anything else and it can be frustrating when you are rushing out the door to get to work or get your kids to school on time. Maybe the garage door is broken and won’t open with your remote control anymore but you aren’t sure which part of the door is broken. Not only is this information important in finding a plan for repairs, but it’s also helpful in knowing how to open your garage door long enough to get you and your car out, while still being able to close it to keep intruders out of your home.
How To Tell If Your Garage Door’s Spring is Broken
The first step you should take is determining the piece of the garage door that is broken and why it won’t work. There are many reasons why a garage door suddenly stops opening and closing and the most common is a broken spring. Luckily, not every problem requires a repair shop for band-aid repairs at the moment, but most of them require further attention for long-term repairs. There are two things you can look for to determine if it’s the spring that are broken on your garage door:
- You hear a loud pop when the door is being opened or closed. The sound is similar to firecrackers and happens when the spring breaks. If it’s in the morning, this is a surefire way to wake up for the day with how high you jump.
- The second sign is that the motor is working but the door isn’t moving at all. You may also hear the opener straining to move the door.
These are the most common signs for a broken garage door spring and is luckily an easy part to have replaced.
Can I Still Use Remote Control?
If you have determined that it was your garage door springs that borke, you may be wondering if you can still use your remote control to open and close it. This is not something you should attempt! No matter how good your opener is, do not use it.
Using your garage door opener with a broken spring can cause even more damage to the opening system that’ll require further repairs and possibly a full replacement. These damages can include:
- Bent rails
- Parts of the carriage will break off
- The gears may be stripped in your opener
- The door panels can crack and crumple
- The opener may even pull itself off the ceiling and can be very dangerous for anywhere nearby
How Safe Is It To Open a Garage Door With a Broken Spring?
As inconvenient as it may be, our Advanced Door professionals advise you to not try opening or closing your garage door when you have a spring broken. Garage doors are normally made from wood or metal and can weigh 500 pounds or more. If you try lifting one on your own you will be lifting all of this weight on your own. Even if you lift it correctly, this amount of weight is often way more than most people can handle.
Garage doors typically have two types of springs:
- Torsion springs- These do most of the heavy lifting and run along the top of the door.
- Extension springs- These run on either side of the door along the rails, and help to counterbalance the weight of the door as it is open or closed.
No matter which spring has broken on your garage door it is wise to call an expert from Advanced Door for repairs and service.
Steps To Open Your Broken Garage Door
For instances where you must open your garage door and have found that it was a spring that broke there are some steps you can take to safely open the door. However, if you can wait until after one of our experts has come out to fix the broken parts, that is always the wisest choice, but at the same time we understand that life must go on and there are times when the door needs to be opened. The step we recommend include:
- Get some help from another person if you can. Again these doors are very heavy and it can be very dangerous trying to open them on your own.
- Be very careful! Open the door with caution and be able to lift with your legs and not with your back. Also watch for your fingers so they don’t get pinched and for your feet so the door doesn’t fall on them.
- Open the door manually and not with a remote control. You may have had to do this before during a power outage or when the motor has burnt out, but this time you’ll be lifting the entire weight of the door without the help of the extension springs.
- Disengage the door from the opener. You can do this by pulling on the handle on a rope that hangs about 18” from the J-arm of the opener. Pull on the handle until the mechanism unlatches.
- The next step is to carefully lift the door until it settles in place along the horizontal rails, this will help make sure the doors stay attached to the ceiling while you manually operate it.
These steps can be used for opening and closing the door. Another thing to watch out for would be that the door does not crash down to the ground. If this happens a lot more things will need to be replaced than just the springs and can add up very quickly.
Is It Safe To Replace My Garage Door Spring?
The quick answer to these questions is, if you know what you are doing and are a professional yourself then yes, but otherwise no it is not safe. If you remember back to the firecracker pop we mentioned before that the springs make when they break, this is not just the spoing breaking but also a lot of energy being released. If you do not know what you are doing when you replace a garage door spring, you do run the risk of injury from the springs snapping back at you or the door falling.
Before trying a replacement or repair of a garage door spring yourself, we recommend calling in a professional so you know it gets done right and the safest way possible.
How Long Does a New Garage Door Spring Last?
New garage door springs can last about 6 to 10 years depending on how often you open and close it to get your car in and out. In simple terms, there’s a high chance you’ll need to replace your garage door springs at least once while living at your home.
Call Us For Fast Garage Spring Repair
If you have found that your garage door has a broken spring and are sick of dealing with manually opening it, give Advanced Door a call for fast spring repair service. Don’t be the hero and try fixing it yourself, there are a lot of things that can happen during these repairs and it can be dangerous for someone who hasn’t done it before, so don’t take a chance and call the experts.