A broken garage door spring always feels sudden — a bang like a gunshot, then a door that won't move. But springs almost never fail without warning. Here's what to watch for, so you can replace a wearing spring on your schedule instead of ours.
1. The Door Feels Heavy
Pull the emergency release (with the door closed) and lift by hand. A properly balanced door lifts easily with one hand and stays put around waist height. If it's heavy or slams down, the springs are losing tension.
2. A Visible Gap or Stretch in the Spring
Look at the torsion spring above the door. Gaps between coils, a stretched appearance, or visible rust all mean the spring is near the end of its life.
3. The Door Opens Crooked
When one spring of a pair weakens, the door lifts unevenly — one side rising faster than the other. That's also a fast way to bend a track, so don't ignore it.
4. Squeaking and Groaning
Some noise is normal in North Texas dust season, but a loud squeal that tracks with door movement often comes from dry, fatigued spring coils.
5. The Opener Strains
If the opener sounds labored, hesitates, or stops mid-travel, the door may be too heavy for it — a classic symptom of dying springs. Running the opener against a heavy door burns out the motor.
6. The Door Slams the Last Few Inches
A balanced door settles gently. Dropping hard at the bottom means the springs aren't holding their share of the weight.
7. Age
Standard springs last about 10,000 cycles — seven to ten years for most families. If yours are older than that, replacement on your terms beats an emergency call on the coldest morning of January, which is exactly when North Texas springs love to let go.
What to Do
Any of these signs warrants a professional look. Spring work is genuinely dangerous DIY — a wound torsion spring stores enough energy to cause serious injury. It's one of the few garage jobs we flatly recommend leaving to a pro.