Sproing!

[billroper]

Garage doors are annoyingly heavy. A garage door for a two-car garage is extremely annoyingly heavy.

I went out and punched the button for the garage door opener this morning. The door went up a couple of inches, then immediately turned around and went back down. After several button pushes, I determined that this trick wasn't going to work, so I pulled the door release and went to lift the door by myself.

Oof! The door was incredibly heavy. I got it up all the way. daisy_knotwise was standing outside, because the original plan had been to pull out the ladder so I could replace some light bulbs, but the garage door problem was now urgent, since both cars were in the garage. Gretchen ran in and got a step stool so she could hold the door open and I failed miserably at relatching the door release so that it would stay open.

"Hang on," I said. "I'll pull my car out, then I'll hold the door while you pull your car out." And we did and I carefully lowered the door back into the closed position and called the service company with a sticker on the back of the door that we'd used for the most recent garage door opener installation.

They told me to look at the springs. Given that one of them was in two pieces, that pretty much explained everything. Happily, they were able to send someone over to replace the springs today, so the garage door is working again.

But that thing is still heavy!

Comments

[birder2.livejournal.com]

That's why I don't have a garage door opener.

[billroper]

Well, the garage door opener was fine. When the springs fail, you're in trouble whether you have a garage door opener or not.

[joecoustic.livejournal.com]

I remember the one car garage growing up and it's manual door. Are two car garage doors that much heavier? I guess it would be twice as heavy. Or is it the extra electronics or the way the mechanism is supposed to work making it harder (since not meant) to lift by hand?

[billroper]

The problem was the broken spring. Apparently, part of the reason that any garage door lifts easily is that there's an enormous tension spring that helps it go up.

If the spring is broken, you get no assist. I've opened this door before when the opener has failed or the power's been out, and it was no problem, but that was with a working set of springs. :)

[joecoustic.livejournal.com]

Makes sense, thanks for clearing that up for me, just something I never really looked at closely. :)

[archiver-tim.livejournal.com]

For 21 years I had a wooden door to a two car gargage. No garage door opener. When the door is balanced right, it goes up and down with ease. Slightly out and it does not stay down or lands with a thump. Been through one spring and then the other over the course of time, each time trapping the car inside until I could lift and get a couple of six foot ladders under it to hold it up enough to get the car out. One happened just after I closed the door. That was a loud, gunshot-loud bang.
Replaceing that spring is no job for those untrained to try.

[dave-ifversen.livejournal.com]

Replaceing that spring is no job for those untrained to try.

Not only that, but it can be downright dangerous. There's a lot of energy in one of those springs - enough so that, if it gets loose in the wrong way, it can take off arms, legs, or heads. That's one of the reasons that the torsion springs are now wound around the big steel shaft that winds the cable. With the big springs on either side of the door, they now put aircraft cable through the middle to contain things - I've seen the results of a spring break on (older) installations without the cable; the resulting pieces flying around punched holes through the sheetmetal of the car inside the garage.