If you’re trying to operate your overhead garage door with the garage door opener and it won’t open or seems to struggle chances are you have a broken garage door spring.
All overhead garage doors regardless of size or style have some type of garage door springs for a counterbalance to the weight of the garage door. Today’s garage doors can weigh as little as 50 pounds all the way up to 700 pounds. The garage door springs make it possible for you to lift your overhead door by hand and also make it possible for the automatic garage door opener to lift the door. When a door is in the closed position the garage door springs are at full load, when the overhead door is in the open position the springs have very little load on them, just enough to hold the door open and without the assistance of the garage door springs your door would be almost impossible to lift.
Your overhead garage door will have one of the following types of springs: extension springs, these are usually found on 8-9’ wide garage doors only, torsion springs, these can be found on any size of garage door and Torquemaster torsion springs which are a proprietary product found only on Wayne-Dalton brand garage doors.
Doors equipped with garage door extension springs will have 1 spring on each side of the garage door and they usually mount at the back of the track and when the garage door is closed the springs will stretch to their fully extended position. These springs are the most dangerous and should be treated with caution.
Overhead doors equipped with garage door torsion springs will be found on a torsion bar which is usually mounted about 12” above the garage door on the front wall. Your overhead door depending on size and weight may have 1, 2 or more garage door springs mounted on this bar. Garage door torsion springs are wound with winding bars and then locked onto the torsion bar with set screws. Garage door torsion springs are fully loaded in the closed position.
Wayne-Dalton garage doors equipped with the Torquemaster system are unique to that brand only and like the conventional torsion springs they mount about 12” directly above the overhead door. The unique difference is the springs are very small in diameter and are actually hidden inside the torsion pipe assembly.
This blog post was provided by Roswell garage door repair company
