A garage door spring is rated for a certain number of cycles, usually 10,000 to 15,000 for a standard spring. In a Houston household that opens the door four to six times a day, that's roughly seven to ten years. Most springs give a few weeks of warning before they go.
The first sign is sound. A door that used to be quiet starts to groan, squeal or pop on the way up. The second is speed: the opener strains, the door lifts slower than it used to, or it stops a few inches off the ground and reverses. Both mean the spring is no longer carrying the door's weight the way it should.
Look at the door itself. If it's crooked when it moves, one spring (or one cable) is doing more work than the other. If you see a visible gap in the coil above the door, the spring has already snapped; a snapped torsion spring sounds like a gunshot from inside the house, and the door will suddenly feel like it weighs 200 pounds, because it does.
Finally, check the age. If the door is over seven years old and the springs have never been replaced, they're on borrowed time. Our $48 maintenance special includes a spring inspection and a balance test that tells you exactly how much life is left.
One rule above all: don't replace a torsion spring yourself. It's wound under enough tension to break bones and it needs the right bars, the right spring for the door's weight, and the right number of turns. Call us. Same-day spring replacement is one of the most common jobs we do, and it comes with a warranty of up to two years.