Broken Garage Door Spring? What to Check Before You Call

The sound is unmistakable. A sudden, violent bang from the garage that sounds like a gunshot. It’s not. It’s the sound of a torsion spring snapping. This is the single most common failure we see on garage doors across Toronto. The first instinct is to hit the opener button. Don’t. The second is to try lifting the door manually. Definitely don’t. That door, which felt weightless before, is now 250-400 pounds of dead weight. Your opener isn't built to lift that, and neither is your back.

How a Torsion Spring Actually Fails After ~10,000 Cycles

A lot of people think the electric opener does all the heavy lifting. It doesn't. The opener’s job is just to get the door moving and guide it along the tracks. The real muscle is the torsion spring system mounted on a bar above the door. When the door is closed, the springs are tightly wound, holding a massive amount of potential energy. As the door opens, the springs unwind, using that energy to counterbalance the door's weight, making it feel light. The opener just handles a few pounds of force.

These springs are rated for a specific number of cycles—one cycle is one full open and close. The standard springs installed in most new homes across the GTA are 10,000-cycle springs. If you use your garage as a main entrance, opening it four to six times a day, you’ll hit that 10,000-cycle limit in about five to seven years. It’s a simple matter of metal fatigue. The steel wire, often a .243 or .250 gauge for a standard double door, can only be twisted and untwisted so many times before it reaches its breaking point. The break is almost always clean and sudden. We see it a lot during Toronto’s deep cold snaps in January and February. Extreme cold can make the steel more brittle, and a spring that was already near its limit will often choose a -20°C morning to finally let go.

The Telltale Signs of a Break

Besides the loud bang, there are several clear indicators that you have a broken spring. The most obvious is a visible gap in the spring itself. Look at the spring(s) on the torsion bar above the door. If one is broken, you'll see a 2-to-3-inch separation in the coils where the metal snapped. If you have two springs, one might be broken while the other is intact.

Another sign is what the opener does. When you press the button, you might hear the motor hum for a second, but the door will only lift an inch or two before stopping and reversing. That’s the opener's logic board sensing an obstruction—in this case, the full, unassisted weight of the door. It's a safety feature that's now preventing the opener from destroying its own gears. You may also see that the lifting cables on either side of the door have gone slack or even unspooled from their drums, looking like a tangled mess of spaghetti. This happens because there's no spring tension to keep them taut.

Before You Call: A Quick, Safe Inspection

You can’t fix this yourself—winding torsion springs requires special tools and is extremely dangerous. But you can gather information that helps us come prepared. Our service call is a flat $29 to get a licensed technician to your door, usually within 30-45 minutes anywhere in the city. When we know what we're walking into, we can work even faster.

First, for your safety, unplug the garage door opener from the ceiling outlet. Do not touch the springs, cables, drums, or any related parts. They are still under immense pressure, even when broken.

• Stand back in your driveway and get a clear look at the door. Is it a single-car (8 or 9 feet wide) or a double-car (16 feet wide) door? Note if it has windows or appears to be a heavy, insulated model like a Garaga R-16 or a Richards-Wilcox R-18 classic.
• Look at the torsion spring(s) directly above the closed door. Do you see one spring or two? Is there a visible gap in one of them?
• Check the lift cables running from the bottom corners of the door up to the drums at each end of the torsion bar. Are they both taut and properly wound, or is one or both of them loose and hanging?
• Take a quick look at the brand sticker on the door if you can find one. Common brands we see in older Toronto homes and newer subdivisions alike are Clopay, Steel-Craft, and Wayne Dalton. This tells us about the door's construction and weight.
• If you have very little space between the top of the door and the ceiling (a low-headroom setup, common in older Toronto laneway garages), let us know. This requires specific procedures and sometimes different hardware.

Having this information helps us confirm we have the exact spring wire, or a suitable engineered equivalent, on the truck. Our trucks stock dozens of sizes, from lighter .2187 wire for single doors to heavy .283 wire for oversized custom wood doors.

The Common Homeowner and Handyman Mistake

The biggest mistake we see is replacing only one spring on a two-spring system. It seems like a way to save money, but it’s a bad idea. Springs are installed at the same time and have the same number of cycles on them. If the left spring broke today, the right spring is likely days or weeks away from breaking itself. It has been doing double duty since its partner failed.

More importantly, a new spring has 100% of its rated lifting power. The old spring on the other side has lost maybe 10-15% of its power over its life. This creates an imbalance. The door will go up and down crookedly, putting enormous stress on the sections, hinges, and rollers. It also forces the opener to work harder, shortening its lifespan. A professional company will always replace springs as a pair. It’s the only correct way to do the job, ensure proper balance, and provide a full warranty on the parts and our labour.

On Site in Mississauga: How We Perform a Proper Spring Replacement

When we arrive at a job, say for a standard 16x7 insulated door in Mississauga, our process is methodical and safe. First, we clamp the door to the track with a pair of locking C-clamps to ensure it cannot move. We then pull the red emergency release cord to disengage the opener. With the door secured, we use proper steel winding bars—never screwdrivers or bolts—to carefully unwind any remaining tension on the unbroken spring. Once all tension is released, we unbolt the center bearing plate and the cable drums, slide the torsion bar over, and remove the old, broken spring pair. We inspect the nylon center bearing and the end bearings for wear; a worn-out bearing can eat through a new spring in a year.

Using a micrometer, we measure the wire diameter, inside diameter, and length of the old springs to calculate the IPPT (Inches of Wire Per Pound of Torque). This ensures the new springs are perfectly matched to the door's weight. On our truck, we have a full stock of high-quality, oil-tempered spring wire. We cut and assemble the correct spring pair on site. After sliding the new springs onto the bar and re-securing everything, we wind them. A typical seven-foot-high door requires about 7.75 full turns, or 31 quarter-turns. We then re-attach the cables, ensuring equal tension, before performing a balance test. We lift the door to waist height and let go. It should hover in place. If it drops, it needs more tension; if it flies up, it has too much. Only when the balance is perfect do we reconnect the opener and test the full system.

The Smart Upgrade: 10,000 vs. 25,000 Cycle Springs

When we replace your springs, we always give you the option between standard 10,000-cycle springs and high-cycle 25,000-cycle springs. The standard ones are what the builder put in. They work, but their lifespan is finite. The high-cycle springs are engineered for longevity, made from a higher grade of steel to withstand more than double the use. For a small premium over the standard springs, you get a system that's built to last 15-20 years, not 5-7.

For any family in Brampton or Markham that uses their garage door as their front door, this is the most logical choice. The cost of a high-cycle upgrade is a fraction of what a future emergency service call will cost. It's about paying for durability and getting the job done right for the long term. This is especially true for heavy, 2-inch thick insulated doors that put more strain on every component.

A garage door system is exactly that—a system. A properly balanced door with fresh, correctly-sized torsion springs puts almost zero strain on your electric opener. A quality LiftMaster or Chamberlain belt drive opener should operate with a quiet hum, not the groaning and shaking you see when it’s trying to deadlift an unbalanced door. The health of your entire system begins and ends with the springs. Getting them right is the most important repair you can make.