My garage door spring snapped at 6am, the replacement cost me $187 and a bruised ego

Was leaving for work in the North Valley and heard that awful twang sound. The coil torsion spring broke clean in half, and the door slammed down hard enough to crack the concrete floor near the threshold. I thought about DIYing it since the part was only $45 at Big Lumber on San Mateo, but my neighbor who used to install doors talked me out of it. He said the tension can kill you if you don't know the wind count on the spring. Paid a licensed guy $187 total including labor and he was done in 40 minutes. Has anyone else tried doing their own spring replacement and actually pulled it off, or am I just hearing the horror stories?

1 comments

1 Comment

quinng728h ago

Few people stop to think about the homeowner's insurance side of this. That cracked concrete floor near your threshold is actually a bigger deal than the spring itself. A lot of policies have a deductible around $500 to $1,000, so $187 out of pocket might be cheaper than filing a claim that could bump your rates for years. Also, that spring snap might have bent the track or knocked the rollers out of alignment, which you probably won't notice until next week. Your neighbor gave you solid advice, because a garage door under tension can send a steel rod through drywall, or worse, through you. Paying a licensed guy for 40 minutes of work sounds steep, but it's cheap when you stack it against a hospital bill or a new door panel.