How To Open a Garage That Has a Broken Spring

Did your garage door break recently? If so, do you know which part is broken and whom to call to get it fixed? While garage doors are usually low-maintenance, they can potentially break just like anything else. It can be frustrating when you’re rushing out the door for work or trying to get your kids to school on time. Perhaps your garage door is no longer responding to your remote control, but you’re unsure which part is at fault. Knowing this information is not only crucial for planning repairs but also for safely opening your garage door to get yourself and your car out, while still being able to secure it to keep intruders out of your home.

How To Tell If Your Garage Door’s Spring is Broken

The first step you should take is to determine which part of the garage door is broken and why it won’t function. There are many reasons why a garage door suddenly stops opening and closing, and the most common issue is a broken spring. Fortunately, not every problem requires an immediate trip to the repair shop, but most of them do need further attention for long-term fixes. There are two things you can look for to determine if it’s the spring that’s broken on your garage door:

1. You hear a loud pop when the door is being opened or closed. This sound is similar to firecrackers and occurs when the spring breaks. If it happens in the morning, it’s sure to startle you awake.
2. The second sign is that the motor is working, but the door isn’t moving at all. You may also hear the opener straining to move the door.

These are the most common signs of a broken garage door spring, and fortunately, it’s a relatively easy part to have replaced.

Can I Still Use the Remote Control?

If you’ve determined that it’s your garage door springs that broke, you might be wondering if you can still use your remote control to open and close it. This is not advisable! No matter how reliable your opener is, do not use it.

Using your garage door opener with a broken spring can cause even more damage to the opening system, requiring further repairs and possibly a full replacement. These damages can include:

• Bent rails
• Parts of the carriage breaking off
• Gears becoming stripped in your opener
• Door panels cracking and crumpling
• The opener potentially detaching from the ceiling, posing a danger to anyone nearby

How Safe Is It To Open a Garage Door With a Broken Spring?

As inconvenient as it may be, our Advanced Door professionals strongly advise against attempting to open or close your garage door when you have a broken spring. Garage doors are typically made from wood or metal and can weigh 500 pounds or more. Attempting to lift one on your own means handling all of this weight by yourself. Even if you lift it correctly, this amount of weight is often more than most people can handle.

Garage doors typically have two types of springs:

• Torsion springs- These do most of the heavy lifting and run along the top of the door. 
• Extension springs- These run on either side of the door along the rails, and help to counterbalance the weight of the door as it is open or closed. 

Regardless of which spring has broken on your garage door, it’s wise to call an expert from Advanced Door for repairs and service.

Steps To Open Your Broken Garage Door

In cases where you must open your garage door and have discovered that it was a spring that broke, there are steps you can take to safely open the door. However, if you can wait until one of our experts has come out to fix the broken parts, that is always the wisest choice. We understand that life must go on, and there are times when the door needs to be opened. The steps we recommend include:

1. Get some help from another person if you can. Again these doors are very heavy and it can be very dangerous trying to open them on your own. 
2. Be very careful! Open the door slowly and be sure to lift with your legs, not your back. Also, watch out for your fingers to avoid getting them pinched, and be mindful of your feet so the door doesn’t fall on them.
3. Open the door manually, not with a remote control. You may have had to do this before during a power outage or when the motor has burnt out, but this time you’ll be lifting the entire weight of the door without the help of the extension springs.
4. Disengage the door from the opener. You can do this by pulling on the handle attached to a rope that hangs about 18” from the J-arm of the opener. Pull on the handle until the mechanism unlatches. 
5. The next step is to carefully lift the door until it settles in place along the horizontal rails, this will help make sure the doors stay attached to the ceiling while you manually operate it. 

These steps can be used for opening and closing the door. Another thing to watch out for would be that the door does not crash down to the ground. If this happens a lot more things will need to be replaced than just the springs and can add up very quickly. 

Is It Safe To Replace My Garage Door Spring?

The quick answer to these questions is: if you know what you are doing and are a professional yourself, then yes. Otherwise, no, it is not safe. If you recall the firecracker-like pop we mentioned before that the springs make when they break, it indicates not only the spring breaking but also a release of a significant amount of energy. If you don’t know what you’re doing when you replace a garage door spring, you run the risk of injury from the springs snapping back at you or the door falling.

Before attempting a replacement or repair of a garage door spring on your own, we strongly recommend calling in a professional so you can be sure it gets done right and in the safest way possible.

How Long Does a New Garage Door Spring Last?

New garage door springs can last about 6 to 10 years, depending on how often you open and close it to get your car in and out. In simple terms, there’s a high chance you’ll need to replace your garage door springs at least once while living in your home.

Call Us For Fast Garage Spring Repair