Broken garage door spring repair, Do I need to have both springs changed?

If you have a double garage or a heavy garage door, chances are you will have two torsion springs instead of just one. When one of them breaks, many people wonder why it is recommend to replace both instead of only replacing the one that is broken.

Is your garage door spring broken?

If you have a double garage or a heavy garage door, chances are you will have two torsion springs instead of just one. When one of them breaks, many people wonder why it is recommend to replace both instead of only replacing the one that is broken. It is a valid question, and here is the answer.

Springs wear out based on usage. If you have 2 springs, they are used in unison, meaning they both get equal usage. Most springs are designed to last at least 10,000 cycles and because it’s such a high number it is nearly impossible to make every spring last exactly the same number of cycles. So if one happens to break after 9,950 cycles and the second one is going to last for the full 10,000 cycles then that means your “good” spring is only going to last a very short while before it too breaks. And that is the problem, because the labour costs to change 2 springs at the same time is much lower than the cost of changing one spring, then coming back again in a month or 3 to redo all the same work to change the other one. It can also be rather inconvenient to have the door incapacitated twice in such a short span of time.

So changing both springs at once can save you both money and time, as well as the trouble of having to schedule two separate repair appointments.

The springs themselves come in all different sizes based on the size and weight of your garage door. They will be priced according to the size. The coil itself is often measured to determine what spring you required for your garage door. In addition you should keep in mind that your springs will need to be changed more often if you have a high use garage door.

That being said, be sure to contact a professional to change your spring. Spring changes can be very dangerous and shouldn’t be considered a do it yourself project. Plenty of people who thought they were experienced handymen have injured themselves or even broken the spring in the process.