Loud bang from the garage and a door that will not open? You have a broken spring. Meridian Garage Door Pros replaces torsion and extension springs same-day, often within a few hours of your call.
Garage door springs do all the work of lifting a 150-pound door. When they break, the door is unsafe to use and the opener cannot handle the load alone.
Most modern Meridian garage doors use torsion springs mounted on a horizontal shaft above the door opening. These springs wind and unwind to counterbalance the door weight. Replacement involves carefully unwinding any remaining tension, removing the old spring, installing the correct replacement, and winding the new spring to spec.
Older homes and some single-car garages in Meridian use extension springs that run alongside the horizontal tracks. These stretch and contract as the door opens and closes. Extension springs always require safety cables to contain the spring if it breaks, and we replace those at the same time if they are missing or worn.
We stock the most common spring sizes on every truck. For standard residential doors in Meridian, the entire job takes about 45 minutes from arrival to a working door. Heavier doors, paired-spring systems, and older hardware can take longer, but most jobs are done in well under two hours.
A broken spring is one of the easiest garage door problems to identify if you know what to look for.
A torsion spring failure sounds like a gunshot or a heavy object hitting the floor. It is loud enough to wake the household. If you heard this and now the door will not open, the spring snapped.
An opener can lift a balanced door using only the energy of a 60-watt lightbulb. Without the spring counterbalance, the opener is trying to lift the full weight of the door — usually 130 to 200 pounds. It will hum, strain, or trip a thermal cutoff and stop trying. The door stays closed.
Look at the torsion spring mounted above the door. If you see a 1- to 2-inch gap in what should be a tightly coiled spring, that is the break point. Do not touch it — the spring is still under partial tension.
If you can lift the door manually but it crashes down the moment you let go, the spring has lost its tension. This is dangerous and a sign that the spring should be replaced immediately. Keep cars, kids, and pets out of the doorway until a technician arrives.
Meridian sees more spring failures than most parts of the country because of the climate. Treasure Valley winters routinely push overnight lows into the teens or single digits, and steel becomes more brittle the colder it gets. A spring that has cycled 8,000 or 9,000 times over the past several years is already near the end of its rated 10,000-cycle life. When the temperature drops into the teens and the homeowner hits the opener on their way to work, the spring snaps.
We see the same pattern every November and December across Heritage Grove, Paramount, Bridgetower, Spurwing, Lochsa Falls, and the rest of Meridian. The first hard cold snap of the season produces a wave of broken-spring calls. Summer is no better — 100-degree garage temperatures combined with daily cycling wear springs out faster than in milder climates.
If your garage door springs are seven or more years old and you live in Meridian, plan to replace them before the first freeze. It is far cheaper and less stressful than dealing with a stuck door on a 15-degree morning with the kids in the back seat.
The clearest sign is a loud bang from the garage, often overnight or on the first cold morning. Other signs include a door that will not open more than a few inches, a door that feels extremely heavy when lifted manually, a visible gap in the torsion spring above the door, or an opener that strains, hums, or reverses when trying to lift the door. If you see any of these in your Meridian home, stop using the opener and call a technician.
Steel becomes more brittle as temperatures drop, and Meridian winters routinely see overnight lows in the teens. A spring that has been cycling for 7 to 10 years is already near the end of its rated life. When that aged spring is suddenly cooled to single digits and then asked to lift a 150-pound door, it often snaps. This is why most spring failures in the Treasure Valley happen between November and March, frequently during the first hard cold snap of the season.
We strongly recommend against it. A torsion spring stores hundreds of pounds of force. Releasing that force without the correct winding bars and technique can cause serious injury. Spring replacement also requires precise calibration of the spring tension to match the door weight, and pairing the spring incorrectly will burn out your opener within months. This is a 30-minute job for a trained technician and a trip to the emergency room for almost everyone else.
Costs vary based on the spring size, the door weight, and whether you have one spring or a pair. We provide a free, no-obligation estimate before any work begins. Call us at (555) 000-0000 to discuss your repair.
If your garage door has two torsion springs and one breaks, we recommend replacing both. The springs are usually installed together and have cycled the same number of times. When one snaps, the second is almost always near failure. Replacing both at the same visit costs less than two separate trips and avoids the same problem happening again in a few months.