Most people don’t think about it until it happens to them, but a garage door that won’t open isn’t just frustrating, it can be dangerous as well. A broken spring can seriously injure someone.
Your garage door springs lift the heavy garage door of your Gurnee home. They help your door to lift up and lower. Springs fall into two categories: extension and torsion.
Understanding the parts of a garage door can help you figure out if you need garage door repairs for your broken door spring. Here’s what you need to know.
Proceed With Caution
Before we go into more detail on how to fix a broken garage door spring, we highly recommend you don’t attempt to DIY this job and get a professional in the Gurnee area instead. It’s estimated that somewhere around 20,000 to 30,000 people suffer injuries in garage door accidents on average.
The garage door spring is under tremendous force and can cause serious injuries. It is a complicated process, and you need the right tools for the job. Here’s why.
Extension Springs and Torsion Springs
Extension springs are relatively easy to replace if you have some basic understanding of garage doors. Be careful not to activate the opener and watch out for if your garage door falls quickly.
Torsion springs are more common, but also more hazardous to fix. Torsion springs are under extreme tension, and if it breaks, you might suffer severe cuts and injuries. Again, if you have torsion springs, you should leave this to a professional as they have the knowledge and experience to handle the repair.
Required Tools
Part of the reason why you need a Gurnee professional is because if you want to do the job right, you need the right garage door repair tools and materials on hand. Here’s what you would need:
- Clamps
- Drill
- Hammer
- Adjustable wrench
- Safety glasses
- Gloves
- Locking pliers
- Socket set
- Winding bars
- Set of wrenches
- Bottom brackets
- Lift cables
- Torsion springs
Replacing Torsion Springs
The first thing your repair expert will do is to use locking pliers to clamp to the track above the rollers. This keeps the door from lifting up while they’re working.
They will also make sure to unplug the garage door opener before beginning any work. They will also wear eye protection and protective gloves during the entire process.
By positioning a sturdy ladder to the side of the spring, they will not be in the way when winding or unwinding. They will only use winding bars and never use screwdrivers or pliers to wind a torsion spring for safety reasons.
Next is loosening the unbroken spring using the winding bar. They’ll unwind it and disconnect the springs from the center bracket. Then remove the nuts and bolts to slide the spring to the end brackets.
Using locking pliers, they’ll secure the torsion tube. Then, loosen the screws and disconnect lift cables.
After that, it’s moving the cable drum and the old spring. They’ll place the spring replacement onto the torsion tube and reinstall the cable drum and replace the torsion bar.
Finally, they’ll move the torsion bar to the left, attach the center bearing, install the spring and adjust the bearing in the cone. Then replacing the drum and attaching the cones to the center bracket.
After that it’s placing the brackets, rollers, and lift cables, and threading and anchoring the cables, and adjusting the drums to make the tension equal.
Last, they will wind the springs, set them, and tighten the setscrews, and lubricate the spring and test your garage door.
Fix That Broken Garage Door Spring in Gurnee
Don’t live with a broken garage. Even though the job might be a complicated process, you don’t have to spend an arm and a leg to get the job done.
We highly recommend contacting us at Premier Door Corporation for your garage door repairs in the Gurnee area. We have the experience, knowledge, and tools necessary to fix your broken garage door spring. Contact us today to set up an appointment.
