If you heard a bang like a gunshot in the garage and the door will not lift now, a spring has broken, and Auroras ASAP Garage Door Service replaces torsion and extension springs across Aurora, Denver and the south metro, seven days a week. Call (303) 985-7942 and we will hold a same-day slot where one is open. Springs carry the entire weight of the door, so this is the repair that makes the door usable again, and it is the one that is genuinely dangerous to attempt without winding bars and the right wire size.
A torsion spring is the black bar mounted on a shaft above the door opening. An extension spring is the long spring that runs along the horizontal track on each side, more common on older Lakewood, Englewood and west Denver garages. The two systems fail differently and are replaced differently, and the first thing we do is confirm which one your door has.
Signs your spring has gone
- A bang from the garage, loud enough to hear from inside the house
- A visible two-inch gap in the coil of the spring above the door
- The opener strains, hums, or lifts the door a few inches and stops
- The door is far too heavy to lift by hand
- The door slams down fast instead of settling
- A spring that looks stretched out and no longer sits tight against its neighbour
Why we replace springs in pairs
On a two-spring door, both springs have taken the same number of cycles and are the same age. When one breaks, the other is typically weeks or months from the same end. Replacing only the broken one leaves an unbalanced door, puts the whole load onto a tired spring, and buys a second service call that costs more than the spring did.
We also size the replacement to the door rather than to whatever was on it. Wire diameter, inside diameter and length together decide how much weight a spring carries, and builder doors are routinely fitted with the cheapest spring that technically works. If the original was undersized for the door, a correctly sized pair lasts longer and the opener works less.
Cycle life, and what it means for your door
Springs are rated in cycles, where one cycle is one trip up and one trip down. A standard builder spring is typically rated around 10,000 cycles. A household that opens the door four times a day uses about 1,460 cycles a year, which puts a 10,000-cycle spring somewhere near the seven-year mark; a family that uses the garage as the main door of the house can run through that in half the time.
We stock higher-cycle springs as an upgrade, and on a door that gets heavy daily use they are usually worth the difference. We will tell you what is on the door now, what the upgrade costs, and leave the choice with you.
Why this is not a weekend job
A torsion spring on a double door holds enough stored energy to break bones. It is wound under tension with steel winding bars, and the common injury is from a substitute: a screwdriver or rebar in the winding cone, which slips. Extension springs on older metro doors carry a second risk, because many were installed before safety containment cables were standard and there is nothing to catch the spring if it snaps.
Our technicians carry the correct bars, the right replacement wire sizes on the truck, and the containment cables that older extension-spring doors should have had from the start. On an extension-spring door we fit those cables as part of the job unless you ask us not to.
Related garage door work
- Garage Door Cable Repair and Replacement
- Garage Door Repair
- Garage Door Maintenance and Tune-Ups
- Emergency Garage Door Repair
Not sure which one you need? That is what the call is for. See every service we run or the areas we cover.