 CylonRedPremium,MVM
join:2000-07-06
Bloom County | You do not get an appreciation for how heavy a garage door is - till you have to dead lift it when it is closed to get it open to go to work....
Torsion spring broke apparently in the middle of the night and the wife never told me about the sound that woke her up. Hit the button to get the car out this morning and the upper panel of the door broke (well - broke more).
Was just waiting and trying to save up to get it replaced and I ran out of time.
We have had problem with the door for the last year or so - when it got hot the door would stop part of the way down. At first I thought it was from the hinge I found broken but this year it started back up. If I pushed (outside of door) or pulled (inside garage) and helped with downward pressure it would close completely. Never know when it would or would not go down.
Finally this year, I figured out the top panel was broken (from an issue years ago) and when it got really hot the top panel would bow in toward the garage till it hit the arm of the garage door opener. I would help it go down the rest of the way - my wife - she would just keep hitting the button till it went down by itself....
--
Brian
"It drops into your stomach like a Abrams's tank.... driven by Rosanne Barr..." A. Bourdain |
|
 macsierraBaby NewfoundlandPremium
join:2003-11-30
Minden, NV | Sounds like you need a professional to set a proper door up. Our 16' wide 8' high wood carriage house doors weigh 600+ pounds each. If set up properly they are no problem.. One hand lift or close.. |
|
|
|
CylonRedPremium,MVM
join:2000-07-06
Bloom County | It is very easy when the spring works but when the spring breaks. You get no help in lifting or closing.
--
Brian
"It drops into your stomach like a Abrams's tank.... driven by Rosanne Barr..." A. Bourdain |
|
macsierraBaby NewfoundlandPremium
join:2003-11-30
Minden, NV | Amen on that! You going to do the spring yourself? |
|
Reviews:
 ·ProLog
 ·Verizon Online DSL
 ·voip.ms
| reply to CylonRed
said by CylonRed:It is very easy when the spring works but when the spring breaks. You get no help in lifting or closing.
The good news in all this is that the spring did not break while the door was part way open. That would have torn the door opener down and probably wrecked the door, big time.
--
The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits. |
|
CylonRedPremium,MVM
join:2000-07-06
Bloom County | reply to macsierra
No - the door is broken - top panel is broken and the door is in rough shape (very cheap door imho). One of my kids picked at teh styrofoam backing and there are a couple holes.
Probably going to look into converting the door to the extension springs though I have an extra torsion spring...
--
Brian
"It drops into your stomach like a Abrams's tank.... driven by Rosanne Barr..." A. Bourdain |
|
 jack bGone FishingPremium,MVM
join:2000-09-08
Cape Cod
kudos:1 | reply to CylonRed
Just be very careful, especially if you're going to eff with it alone.
I know of people getting seriously injured from working on garage doors.
--
~Help Find a Cure for Cancer~
~Proud Member of Team Discovery ~ |
|
macsierraBaby NewfoundlandPremium
join:2003-11-30
Minden, NV Reviews:
·Charter
| said by jack b:Just be very careful, especially if you're going to eff with it alone.
I know of people getting seriously injured from working on garage doors.
Best way to go for the DIY is to suit up. Full face and head gear, shoulder guards and vest, etc.. That's to protect from the springs and winding bars flying around.. 
--
Hey There, Voter! Do you remember that on Inauguration Day (Jan 20th) 2009, the national average for a gallon of gasoline was about $1.78? How's that "Hope & Change" working out for you? Anyone But Obama Nov. 2012.
|
|
iknowPremium
join:2012-03-25 | reply to CylonRed
said by CylonRed:No - the door is broken - top panel is broken and the door is in rough shape (very cheap door imho). One of my kids picked at teh styrofoam backing and there are a couple holes.
Probably going to look into converting the door to the extension springs though I have an extra torsion spring...
i'd think twice about that, the torsion springs have a steel bar in the center, and all they could do is rotate, whereas an extension spring can fly around the garage like shrapnel, if, as usually the case, it don't have a steel cable through the center, preventing that. and as far as extension springs lasting longer than torsion springs? i doubt that very much. |
|
 tmh
@verizon.net | reply to macsierra
said by macsierra:Best way to go for the DIY is to suit up. Full face and head gear, shoulder guards and vest, etc.. That's to protect from the springs and winding bars flying around..
You mean like this?
|
|
scross
join:2002-09-13
Cordova, TN | reply to CylonRed
Our big old wooden door weighs at least 350 lbs, maybe more. It has two torsion springs, which I've had to replace twice, maybe three times now over the past 25 years; all DIY work. If one spring breaks then it's a real bear to get the door up the first two or three feet (this requires some combination of brute strength and lifting via jack, usually), but after that the remaining spring makes it relatively easy. I suspect lifting it by hand - even with two or three people - would be all but impossible if both springs were broken,. Luckily odds are very high that only one spring will break at any given time (the other one probably won't be far behind it, though).
As far as replacing torsion springs goes, it was a bit of a pain and time-consuming for me but I didn't find it to be particularly dangerous, as long as I put some thought into safety first; there are detailed instructions for doing it on the internet, but I just winged it the first time. I don't think it's any more dangerous than changing a tire under less-than-ideal (that is, typical side-of-the-road) conditions. But it turns out that having someone come out and install two new springs for you isn't much more expensive than just buying the two springs yourself, if you can even find someone who'll sell them to you (and I learned the hard way that if you need to replace one spring then you'd better go ahead and replace the other one at the same time), so from now on I'll probably just have someone come out and take care of it for me.
BTW, there are newer, much more DIY-friendly torsion spring systems out there, at least for the newer, lighter doors. I don't know if they'll work for heavy wooden doors. |
|
CylonRedPremium,MVM
join:2000-07-06
Bloom County | reply to iknow
All of the extension springs I have ever seen - including my grandparents house they bought in the 70's - the heavy duty wire thru them to prevent them from flying about.
--
Brian
"It drops into your stomach like a Abrams's tank.... driven by Rosanne Barr..." A. Bourdain |
|
robbinPremium,MVM
join:2000-09-21
Leander, TX
kudos:1 | reply to scross
said by scross:As far as replacing torsion springs goes, it was a bit of a pain and time-consuming for me but I didn't find it to be particularly dangerous, as long as I put some thought into safety first...I don't think it's any more dangerous than changing a tire under less-than-ideal (that is, typical side-of-the-road) conditions. I have a friend who was working on one and the spring broke. It embeded into his forearm and the EMS/Fire Department had to cut him down and take him and spring to the hospital to have it removed in surgery. |
|
 herdfanPremium
join:2003-01-25
Hurricane, WV | reply to CylonRed
said by CylonRed:Probably going to look into converting the door to the extension springs though I have an extra torsion spring... Bad idea. Have you ever seen what can happen when one of those puppies lets go? If there are not safety cables, and as a newbie homeowner didn't know they were needed, they can cause some damage. In my case, it was the drywall at the back of the garage that ended up with a nice hole. Put safety cables in soon after.
In our current house, had a company come in and replace the extension springs with a torsion spring. Had a young daughter and didn't like the thought of one breaking when she was around. |
|
CylonRedPremium,MVM
join:2000-07-06
Bloom County | Already been mentioned and responded to 2 posts up...
Been doing more reading on the extension springs and from what I have seen\read - they are mainly used for single piece doors which I don't want. The single piece doors are generally used in more moderate climates as well.
--
Brian
"It drops into your stomach like a Abrams's tank.... driven by Rosanne Barr..." A. Bourdain |
|
garys_2kPremium
join:2004-05-07
Farmington, MI | reply to CylonRed
I had to put in a whole new door this year and asked the installer about converting from torsion to extension springs. He said that he has to replace a lot more extension springs than torsion, that they don't last as long. |
|
CylonRedPremium,MVM
join:2000-07-06
Bloom County | reply to CylonRed
$1150 for new door (Clopay - steel and fully insulated), new rails and wheels, torsion springs (2) - only thing they won't replace is the hangers the rails are connected to.
--
Brian
"It drops into your stomach like a Abrams's tank.... driven by Rosanne Barr..." A. Bourdain |
|
scross
join:2002-09-13
Cordova, TN | reply to robbin
said by robbin:said by scross:As far as replacing torsion springs goes, it was a bit of a pain and time-consuming for me but I didn't find it to be particularly dangerous, as long as I put some thought into safety first...I don't think it's any more dangerous than changing a tire under less-than-ideal (that is, typical side-of-the-road) conditions. I have a friend who was working on one and the spring broke. It embeded into his forearm and the EMS/Fire Department had to cut him down and take him and spring to the hospital to have it removed in surgery. Well, I never claimed that there were no safety issues involved here, only that this is probably no more dangerous that things people typically do every day. I took reasonable safety precautions - I tried to avoid positioning myself directly in front of the spring, for example, and instead stood a bit off to the side; I kept my hands away from the spring itself, while it was under tension; I wore protective gloves and eye-wear, and so on. But in light of your friend's experience, should I choose to do this work again I might drape an old blanket or something over the spring while I'm working with it, which should trap any potential shrapnel or at least slow it down. (I should note here that should a torsion spring break AND eject shrapnel - which mine has never done, that I'm aware of - then that could happen at any time and under any conditions. Anybody or anything could be in the line of fire, too.) And as already noted in this thread, your typical extension spring tends to be as dangerous as a torsion spring, if not more so. The torsion spring is at least wrapped around a steel axle which isn't going anywhere; an extension spring may or may not have a safety cable attached to it, or that cable may fail. |
|
robbinPremium,MVM
join:2000-09-21
Leander, TX
kudos:1 | I think the big difference is that you adjust extension springs while they are slack but you adjust torsion springs while they are under load. |
|
scross
join:2002-09-13
Cordova, TN
1 edit | said by robbin:I think the big difference is that you adjust extension springs while they are slack but you adjust torsion springs while they are under load.
Torsion springs aren't under any appreciable load until you get down to the last few turns. They're kind of like lug nuts - you don't really put any effort into them except when first loosening them or snugging them up. (These are also the times that a car is most likely to fall off of the jack, if you aren't careful; there is a right way and a wrong way to do this.) For torsion springs you need to make sure that your winding rods are inserted correctly. Plus there are ways of making the door/wall help you out here.
I can see why most people don't want to tackle it; I may choose to not tackle it again next time myself. But it isn't the "death waiting to happen" scenario that a lot of people make it out to be. Plus I believe I've already mentioned the DIY-friendly systems that are out there (these have been around for a while now). If I ever get around to replacing my door then I will be taking a hard look at these. |
|
