Three years ago, I had purchased a new garage door and opener through Costco. A local contractor handled the installation. Other than the light bulb repeatedly getting loose, the door and opener worked flawlessly. I really like the new steel sectional garage door for two reasons:
- I didn’t have to worry if I parked too close to the garage door anymore. That’s a real problem with tilt up garage doors.
- When I was inside the garage, I no longer had to worry about the garage door whacking someone when it opened. Again, a problem with tilt up garage doors.
Anyways, the honeymoon ended last night when one of the torsion springs broke. Ugh. At first, I wasn’t sure what was happening. The garage door would only open about 3 inches and then stop. It also could not completely close by itself. I ended pulling the release so that the garage door could slam shut. After some inspection, I discovered that one of the springs was broken. Now, I’ve fixed many an extension spring on tilt up garage doors before, but torsion springs were something new. I spotted this page on replacing torsion springs and it looked entirely unappealing. Anyways, I called one contractor who quoted me $239 to replace the one spring. Not sure if that was the after hours price or their regular price, but since I was in no hurry I waited until day break to call again. This time, I called Halcyon Overhead Doors in San Jose. $159 to replace one spring and $199 to replace both. Of course, I replaced both with high cycle torsion springs that should last 12-15 years. We’ll see how these perform, but a garage spring failing after three years? C’mon.
