Garage Door Spring - CRACK!

[BrokenolMarine]

That was LOUD.

Came in from fishing at the pond last night and pulled the UTV into the garage, rolled down the garage doors. Had opened both sides so I could put away the rods in the wall racks on the truck side. Pushed the buttons and both sides were rolling down, and I was rolling UP the windows on the UTV... CRACK... the garage door five feet away shook and some spray foam on the inside of the door flew off and the cables on the door flew around. I thought someone had driven into the garage door from outside.

I nearly had to change my shorts. Once my heart rate returned to normal I checked. Both cables were loose, and the garage door opener would not function. The UTV was NOT going anywhere until this was solved. Seems the coil spring on the door had broken. The one on the roll up door on the boathouse broke the first year we were here, but NOT with me standing five feet away.

Nothing I could do at Dusk on Sunday Evening so I put it from my mind. Okay, I tried to put it from my mind, and failed. I went into the house and looked up Overhead Door Company in our local area, who had installed the new Garage Door Openers the previous year. Great People. Hmmm, they open at 8am the next morning. NOW I can put it from my mind.

Monday morning, 801am.

Called the company and the boss answers. "I'll have someone there around 1030am."
"Cool," I say, "While they are here, can you have them do the servicing of the other two doors as well?"
"No problem."

1015, the young man arrives. He gets right on it, and by 1130 the job is done and all three doors have been lubed and he checked that they work smoothly, including the manual door on the boathouse. No risk to the old people and a more than reasonable charge for the part and the house call.

Like Rossane Rosanna Dana said, "It's always Sumptin."

[daytime dave]

It always is something for sure.

I'm glad nothing hit you.

[BrokenolMarine]

Thanks... I was thankful as well. The springs ARE captured, but a piece could have broken off.

[fortyshooter]

My neighbor had the torsion spring on his break 2 weeks ago and he was offering 100 bucks to anyone who could just walk up and raise the door...it is very heavy! Got it all fixed up last week. You don't want to mess around with those wind up torsion springs! Glad nothing hit you BM!

[Sir Henry]

Stay safe.

[BrokenolMarine]

When the spring on the boathouse garage door broke several years ago, I watched a few videos on replacement, saw the cost of the spring and the tools to tension it. Then I read about the dangers involved if you have a mishap while doing so.

Hmmm. I am not supposed to be on a ladder, knee surgeries. Not supposed to work over my head, bilateral shoulder surgeries. So, I checked with that local company, and they were really reasonable. Done. Then had them replace the two garage door openers for the house. I never considered risking it.

[rickhem]

Weird that this came up today. Not the same thing, but a near miss on a similar theme.

I was out yesterday doing some brush hogging around the edges of the fields, and decided to put the ROPS up on the tractor. Had a few instances last year that scared me while pushing fallen trees back into the treeline, the tractor came up on two wheels with the loader and pallet forks up high. That spooked me, so I decided to put that ROPS up, even though it's a bit too high to fit in the garage. A few hours later, after disconnecting the brush hog and some other tasks, and without thinking about what I was doing, I pulled the tractor back into the garage and felt this weird hesitation as it went in. Saw the garage door moving over my head too. I pull in "forks first" in the summer, so that last bit as the rear wheels pop up onto the slab are where I felt it. Seems that the garage door was about in inch too low for the ROPS, but with me going INTO the garage, the ROPS just pushed on the bottom pad of the garage door and moved it forward, and up out of the way of the ROPS, as the tractor rolled into the garage. The door was just pushed a bit further back on the track (manually operated) and I really dodged a bullet with that one.
I lowered the ROPS before taking it back out again later.

[cooperhawk]

About ten years ago the garage door opener for Carol's car quit working so we had to open it manually. On Valentines day I had purchased a new belt drive one to replace it, and as a Valentine gift I was installing it.

I was working on the block where the main bearing and the door opener track are mounted in the center attaching the new bracket for the track when the bracket holding the springs broke loose and unspun the spring by whirling round and round. Only problem, my hands were in the way. Next thing I knew I was on the floor and both hands were bleeding profusely.

I finally got up and went to the house door and called for Carol. She came out and we wrapped both hands in wet towels and away we went to the Emergency Room.

Now it just happened to be the opening day of NACAR which I had planned to watch, but now I was in the hospital.

A pretty young nurse's aid cleaned my hands up and a nice looking nurse shot some pain killer in both of them. (Not bad, so far I have a concerned wife, a good looking aid and a good looking nurse).

Then in comes the doctor who was also a very nice looking female. (Hey, I'm feeling no pain and getting all this attention and sympathy by a bevy of nice looking females).

I decided to push my luck and ask if they could get The Daytona 500 on that little TV in the corner, and they did.

Then I went too far and asked for beer.

From now on I hire professionals to do that kind of work.

[BrokenolMarine]

We have to fold the Rops down to get the tractor in a lot of places, so it stays down most of the time. Most of the tractor work is flat ground, but it goes up if needed. Luckily the barn ceiling is high. The only overhead Miss T has to worry about is the annual work on the run for the coop. We open the end, use the bucket to pull the base, then add a new layer. Designed that way. Too old to shovel that job.

[Mags]

Our old doors used extension type springs with a cable that ran through the middle of them. The cable is supposed to be a safety feature to retain the coils when the springs breakk. Problem I had with them is when the springs broke they yanked and shredded the cables and the broken spring coils still bounced around the garage. Lucky no one was in the garage when they let loose. I initially replaced those springs with new ones myself wasn't hard. There's very little tension in the spring when the door is fully up and open. Eventually that whole setup was replaced by new doors with torsion springs. A torsion spring when it breaks can scare the crap out of you, but it just unspools around an axle shaft when it does. There aren't any parts flying around the garage. I've only had to replace a torsion spring once a long time ago at a previous house. Wasn't really that hard. Mostly took some strength and a couple of bars to wind up the new spring. In those days things here where a bit more backwater, so there was a lot DIY. Now, we have an amazing Overhead Door installer to take care of the doors for us.

[daytime dave]

My old house had the type of door springs Mags describes. I learned how to fix it by going to Sears. Back then, they had different colored springs for how heavy you needed. I had to go home and get one of the broken pieces. The man at Sears explained what to do and I went home and figured it out. This was well before YouTube.
I also replaced my garage door opener when a plastic gear went. I had purchased a new overhead door opener years before when it was on clearance for $20.oo. I had made friends with that fellow at Sears and he clued me in on good deals for years.
My favorite and perhaps best deal was a steel two wheeled yard cart made by Radio Flyer for Sears. It was a whopping $5.oo. I did have to put it together myself. It has lasted at least thirty years and I still use it.

[dave77]

I also paid extra to have my garage door and opener installed. I'm glad I did, young guy who really knew what he was doing had it done in a couple of hours. I could have done it but it would have taken me a day or two.

Same with the 3 guys that set up the carport that I enclosed to make into a garage. 2 guys unloading and setting up the parts and 1 guy doing the fasteners. They had it down to a science, no wasted moves. They had 2 more on their trailer that they said they would have set up that day.