By Alpharetta Garage Door Repair

01/25/2018 Garage door springs can confuse and confound a lot of people. There are so many half-truths and non-truths �out there� that sometimes people don�t know what to believe. Alpharetta Garage Door Repair offers these tips to help you decipher all the signs and symptoms of garage door spring issues so that you can make wiser decisions concerning repair, replacement or service.

What are your springs and what do they do?
Your garage door springs are the highly pressurized metal springs that do the heavy lifting when you use your home or commercial garage door. It�s true that yo use your opener system to operate your garage door but it�s really your springs that do the actual lifting and lowering each time you access it. Springs come in two main types; torsion and extension springs.
Torsion springs are mounted horizontally over the top of the garage door while extension springs are mounted on either side of the garage door and hang above and parallel to the horizontal tracks. Both have limited life cycles and will need repair or replacement at some point depending on wear, age and use.
Torsion springs have an expected life of about 10,000 cycles. They are made of tempered and hardened steel and are built to last. Don�t forget though; the work they do is heavy and tough. Eventually, they snap or crack and when they do, they release a tremendous amount of stored energy. If you average two car trips daily, your torsion springs can last an average of about 7 years. When they break, they tend to break at about the same time so if you are replacing one, be prepared to also tend to the other. Extension springs tend to be found in older buildings and homes. They tend to last about as long as their torsion counterparts but all depends on things like humidity, use, weight of garage door, regular maintenance and other factors.
Forget DIY
DIY stands for do-it-yourself and most professionals don�t recommend that you install, repair or replace either type of garage door springs on your own. The reasons for this are many, but first and foremost is the fact that working with these highly pressurized and tempered metal springs is dangerous and not to be taken lightly. When a garage door spring breaks it releases tremendous pressure and every year many people are injured and some are even killed by improper handling of their garage door springs. Snapped springs can fly through windshields and can cause bodily injury as well as extensive property damage. All of this risk in the attempt to save a few dollars? It�s NOT worth it!


Read more on: Identifying Garage Door Spring Issues