Garage Door Springs:
WHOA, you just went to open your garage door so you could go to work, or take the kids to school and BAM! a loud noise, and suddenly your garage door won't open. You try a few times, it goes up a few inches or a foot or so and stops. Quickly you jump out to pull the red cord, but when you do the door falls back to the floor, and you can hardly budge it, to make it go up. Now you (or just your car) are trapped inside the garage. What happened? What can you do?

typical garage door torsion spring
with winding cones at ends

What just happened is that a torsion spring broke. You have not even noticed it/them up there on a rod above the garage door, quietly doing their job for years. It (or they if you have a double wide door) have been coiling and uncoiling each time the door goes up and down balancing the considerable weight of the door. Being made of steel alloy, springs (and all things metal, plastic, or organic) fatigue over time, become brittle and then fail. Most torsion springs are made of high quality oil-tempered spring steel (at least those sold by my friends at garagedoorsupplyco.com... --they can be reached at 888-346-3173) and can last for thousands of cycles before failing. You don't want to replace them before they fail of course, because there is no way of measuring how many cycles are left in them. What you do want to do is have a number handy of a reliable, honest, garage door repair company who can come rescue you within a reasonable time and replace your broken spring to free you from your diliemma.

Remember, if this has not happened to you yet, and your door has mechanical springs to help lift it, IT WILL! Don't panic. It is a normal part of life like measles and chickenpox.