Garage door torsion spring - replacement

[J D Thomas]

Yesterday when closing one of our garage doors via the opener, upon closing the torsion spring snapped, right in the center. Made one heck of a racket. I've seen and read enough about these beasts that leads me to NOT make this a DIYer project. What's a fair price to have someone come and and do the job. FWIW, I live in the Pacific NW? I'd just like to get a ballpark figure before I start making calls. It's a single sized, wood sectional door with a center mount torsion spring.

Thanks.

[Scott Loven]

I paid around $300 to have an old door with spring and opener removed and moved to a new location. Also included was installing an additional opener and weather stripping on two doors.
Scott

[Jon Healy]

The same thing just happened to me. My door has two and one snapped. My wife called a couple places and got a quote of between $79 and $129 for one side, but they reccomend to replace both. My wife mentioned that I was thinking of doing it myself and they both said that it was illegal for a homeowner to do this work.(???)

So the third guy we called said "no problem." I bought two springs for $80 and the door was back in business in a couple hours. I just took my sweet time (especially when loading/unloading the springs) and had zero problems.

Good luck with whichever direction you go.

[Dennis Peacock]

Tinkering with those springs should never be taken lightly. People have been seriously hurt or even killed trying to fix those springs. Not saying it can't be done by you, but just saying that you need to be extremely careful should you decide to tackle this yourself. I'd get someone that does this for a living to fix it if I were you. Sometimes, it's just not worth the risk.

[Doug Shepard]

It's been 15 years or so since I had to have it done, so even if I could recall the cost it's probably higher now anyway. But I seem to recall the guy having some pretty specialized tools for tensioning the spring. I sure wouldn't want to mess with it without some real thorough instructions or even video to make sure I wouldn't get myself in trouble.

[Mike Henderson]

If you hire someone to do the work, make sure you have a full and complete estimate before you agree to let them do the work. I had the same thing happen and called a couple of places - got rough phone estimates of about $100. Went to work and when I returned, my wife told me the cost was $450 (don't remember exactly but that's close). Basically, what the company did was charge about $100 for EACH of the springs (I had two) plus a lot of labor.

They know that when your garage door is broken, you're kind of stuck, want it fixed immediately, and are probably not going to get a bunch of estimates - AND you're not going to be a repeat customer - so they stick it to you.

So just be careful. Garage door repair companies are on the same level as used car salesmen.

Mike

[David G Baker]

Yesterday when closing one of our garage doors via the opener, upon closing the torsion spring snapped, right in the center. Made one heck of a racket. I've seen and read enough about these beasts that leads me to NOT make this a DIYer project. What's a fair price to have someone come and and do the job. FWIW, I live in the Pacific NW? I'd just like to get a ballpark figure before I start making calls. It's a single sized, wood sectional door with a center mount torsion spring.

Thanks.
JD
The spring on your door, is it a double spring setup, a spring on each side of the door or is it a track door that has the wind up spring at the top center of the doorway. If its the double spring set up it can be changed by you if you are handy with tools. Stanley makes replacement springs. I suggest that you replace both springs so the tension is balanced.
If the spring is the wind up type, call a pro because they can be deadly if you make a mistake.
Good luck.
David B

[J D Thomas]

Thanks everyone. It was good to get a feel on other's experiences before I started calling around. I really don't feel like fooling with it myself this time, mostly since I've never attempted it before and right now I just have too much work on my desk. But I've got a guy coming out tomorrow and it will lighten my bank account about $150. I figure it's money well spent since I'll watch what and how he does it and learn a thing or two. I have 3 garage doors so chances are very good I'll be doing this again someday, and I'd like to be able to do it myself if necessary.

Thanks again to all.

[Eric Mims]

Our neighbor's garage door broke as they were leaving on vacation.. one side broke off, twisted, and the door was jammed at a 20 degree angle or something crazy. They didn't want to leave it open for 2 weeks and it wouldn't go up or down at all. We tooled around but finally had to cut the wire. I got some wire cutters and I got into position to minimize any risk, leaned in like I was lighting a stick of dynamite and BAM! That wire cut straight through the door. Luckily I was in the right position, no harm done. :eek: