Parts We Carry
Most of the service area's housing went up between 1959 and 2001, with the median build year sitting at 1986, and that means torsion springs sized for a fairly narrow band of door weights and drum setups. We stock the wound torsion springs that match doors from that 1980s-90s stretch of construction - the sizes you find on the bulk of the 34,734 owner-occupied houses across the area. We also carry extension springs for the older or smaller doors still hanging around from the tail end of the 1959 start date, plus the cables, end bearing plates, and center brackets that usually go bad alongside a spring rather than on their own. What we don't stock is anything custom-wound for a door that's been swapped out from the original - those take a special order, and we'll tell you that up front instead of jury-rigging something that won't hold torque.
The Cost of This Job
A spring job's price depends on a few things: whether it's one spring or two, whether the cable and drums came down with it, and whether the door is a standard single or a heavier double. We don't quote a number here because every job that comes off a truck is different once the door's up on the wall and we can see the drums and bearing plates. What we can tell you is that a two-spring failure on a double door almost always costs more than a single spring on a one-car door, and that waiting after the first spring goes usually turns into a bigger bill, because the second spring is now carrying a load it wasn't built for. If your opener has been straining to lift the door partway, that's the spring talking, and it's cheaper to deal with now than after the opener burns out too.
How It Shows Up
The door feels heavier than it used to, especially if you lift it by hand to test it. The opener strains, grinds, or stalls partway up, sometimes reversing itself. You might hear a loud bang from the garage - that's the spring letting go, usually when the door is down and under full tension. Look at the spring itself: a torsion spring that's snapped will show a visible gap in the coil, usually right at the top of the door above the header. If only one spring on a double-spring door has gone, the door may still open, just crooked or hard to move, which is a sign to get it looked at before the second one takes on the full load and fails too.
