Many homeowners may not know this, but their garage door’s spring plays a considerable role in its performance. When the spring breaks, the garage door can’t be lifted or lowered, which for many types of garage doors, means that it is stuck. It goes without saying that like everything mechanical garage door springs aka torsion springs have a shelf life of a certain number of cycles. If they aren’t replaced in time, they can suddenly fail leading to an inconvenience.
What is the Life of a Regular Torsion Spring?
So, how long does a garage door spring last? The answer to that isn’t simple because it varies. Every time the garage door is opened and closed, it is recorded as one cycle. A typical garage door spring can last for around 10k cycles. That often means that a person living alone and using the garage door twice a day will complete 2x cycles a day and so their garage door spring will last longer than a family of five with two cars that open and close the door 5x times a day. So, on average, you’re looking at a decade of life from a good garage door spring.
What Factors Lead to the Garage Door Spring Breaking?
The spring can break for a myriad of reasons including:
- Regular wear and tear can cause the spring to break.
- Corrosion and rust will affect the spring and damage it to a degree, causing it to break. The best way to prevent it is to use WD40 on the spring every few months.
- Low-quality garage doors or cheap garage doors use a single long torsion spring to cut costs instead of having a spring on each side. That means that one spring has 2x the burden to deal with and so it fails much sooner.
How Strong is Your Garage Door’s Spring?
If you want to know how strong your garage door spring then just follow the steps below:
- Pull the emergency release cord, aka the red handle.
- Then raise and lower the door by hand, you need to hear if there is any speaking when you do it. If you hear squeaking, some WD40 on the spring should fix it.
- Raise the door a couple of feet off the ground then let it go. If it continues to hold it’s place, then the garage door’s spring is good for a couple of years. If it falls to the ground, it is time to replace the spring.
Conclusion
Homeowners with large families or people who go in and out of the garage frequently would want to invest in high-quality extended life torsion springs. Sure, they cost a few extra bucks compared to the regular ones but they will not require replacing as quickly.
One thing to keep in mind is never to try and replace a garage door spring on your own. The door is under a great deal of pressure depending on how tightly they are wound, so trying to DIY this spring repair is a bad idea and should be left to professionals like us.
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