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Broken Garage Door Spring or Cable?
A bang like a gunshot from the garage, then a door too heavy to lift. Springs and cables are the one part of a garage door only a technician should touch.
Quick Answer
A broken garage door spring announces itself with a loud bang and leaves the door far too heavy to lift, because the spring, not the motor, carries almost all of the door's weight. A broken cable instead leaves the door hanging crooked, with one side lifting and the other dragging. Both are under serious tension and both are dangerous to work on without winding bars and training. A single spring, a matched pair and cables are each quoted supplied and fitted, with the price confirmed before any work starts. Springs are rated in cycles rather than years, so a door that runs many times a day wears them out sooner, and salty coastal air pits the steel and shortens their life further.
Common Causes
Metal fatigue at end of life
Springs are made for a set number of open-and-close cycles, and each one flexes the steel a little further. A family door that runs all day uses them up far sooner than a holiday home's. Our garage door springs guide explains the types and how they wear.
Salt and damp
Salt off the ocean and estuary pits spring steel and cable strands, and a pitted spring snaps early. Canal and beachfront homes get corrosion-protected parts for that reason.
Wrong spring specification
A spring meant for a lighter door, or two springs that no longer match after one was replaced, is overworked from day one.
Cable fraying at the drum or bracket
Lift cables chafe where they wind onto the drum and rust at the bottom corner bracket, which is where most of them part. It's a garage door cable repair, done with the tension safely taken off.
Poor balance stressing one side
When a door runs out of square for months, one side's spring and cable do most of the work and fail first, and the other side tends to follow.
Sudden shock loading
Letting a door drop onto something, or forcing one that's jammed, jolts the whole lifting system and can snap a cable on the spot.
What You Can Check Safely
Safe to check yourself
- Scan the spring above the door for a clean split somewhere along the coil
- Stand back and see if the bottom of the door is level; a low side usually means a cable
- Check the cables near the bottom corners for slack, loose strands or rust
- Only with the door fully DOWN: release the motor and feel the weight; a door you can barely shift has lost its spring
- Think back: a single sharp bang from the garage is how springs usually go
Do not attempt
- Never wind, unwind or swap a spring yourself; the energy stored in it can maim
- Leave the opener switched off; dragging a door with no spring behind it burns out motors and bends panels
- Don't release the motor while the door is up, or it may come crashing down
- Never wedge a raised door on timber or a car jack and work beneath it
When to Call a Technician
Call a technician straight away if any of the following apply:
- A loud bang came from the garage and the door won't lift, which calls for garage door spring repair
- The spring coil has visibly split
- A lift cable is slack, fraying or has come off its drum
- The door rises unevenly, drops hard, or feels far heavier than it should
- The opener labours, cuts out or reverses the moment it starts
Recommended Services
Get Help With This Problem
Prefer to call? 0476 156 953Heard the bang and the car is stuck inside?
Don't try to force it: a door with a failed spring is unsupported weight. We carry the common spring sizes. Outside our published hours we attend emergencies, with the after-hours rate agreed first.
Frequently Asked Questions
Leave the door where it is, switch off the opener and keep people and pets clear of the opening. With the spring gone, the door's weight has nothing holding it, and the motor was never meant to carry it. If the door stopped part-way, don't touch the release cord. Then ring us: one spring or a matched pair is quoted supplied and fitted, and we carry the common sizes, so most are done in one visit.
Sometimes, but it shouldn't be run. A strong opener can haul a door up with a spring gone, and every lift puts the motor, gears, cables and panels under strain they were never built for; a snapped spring left unrepaired often ends with a bent door and a dead opener as well. Lifting it by hand is heavy and risky, since nothing holds it once it's up. If you need the car out before we arrive, call first and we'll tell you whether your door can be safely propped.
We'd strongly advise against it. Torsion springs, roller-door springs and tilt-door springs all store enough energy to break bones when they're wound or released, and the right tools, winding bars and spring sizes matter. The parts are also specific to the door's weight and size, so a wrong spring fails early or leaves the door out of balance. This is one job for a tradesman.
It's driven by how many springs your door runs and what size they are. A single spring supplied and fitted is the smallest version of the job; a matched pair costs more; heavier doors running more springs cost more again. If the springs are sound and the door has simply lost tension, a re-tension needs no new parts. Door type and size, access, and whether you need us in standard hours or after hours all move the figure, and every price is confirmed before work starts.
On a door with two, almost always. The spring still in one piece has worked every cycle its partner did and is rarely far behind it, and doing both at once saves a second visit. It's different on a single-spring door, or where one of the pair is fairly new, and we'll say which applies once we've looked.
Almost always, if the door itself is sound. A new spring or pair brings a healthy door back to full working order, and it costs a fraction of a new door. It stops being worth it when the door has other problems on top, such as panels rusted through or a curtain buckled across its width, in which case we'll price the repair and a new door side by side.
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