Garage door spring Inspection?

[mrvm]

The garage door spring on a door that is used quite regularly broke last night. Garage doors have functioned normally and smoothly. No one was home nor hurt thanks to the safety cable. Seems like this is an unpredictable event and would have scared me senseless if I was in the garage as the spring had enough energy to violently jam and bend the spring mounting eye bolt.
Picked up a pair of replacement springs with the same painted color on the ends (yellow). Installation was straightforward.
Any recommendations to change all the springs preemptively, every ten years or get the door inspected by a pro? Is the surface rust the clue to consider replacement?

 

[LB-1911]

Any recommendations to change all the springs preemptively, every ten years or get the door inspected by a pro? Is the surface rust the clue to consider replacement?

DDM Garage Doors is my go to reference on the topic. Several years ago I believe there was a thread here about extension springs that let loose and there were no Safety Cables installed.

Extension springs often fatigue before they break. Others just break without warning.

Longer Life Extension Springs are now available. In our tests here at DDM Garage Doors, Inc. we have found that the standard cycle life springs start to gap at just over 7,000 cycles. These will usually work beyond 10,000 cycles, but only after additional gapping or until the spring breaks. We also found that at this point, the springs are gapped an extra inch or so. Three problems occur as a result of springs gapping.

One is that the springs lift about 10% less. On a 200 pound door that is about 20 pounds, and if the opener force is properly set, the opener will stop lifting the door just after it starts.

A second problem that frequently occurs is that when the door opens, the cables loosen and fall off the pulleys. When the homeowner tries to close the garage door, it jambs and reverses. Often the stretch can be adjusted, but tests have shown that after springs get multiple gaps, they will continue to grow an inch or more every 1,000 cycles. They are also more likely to break, causing damage to hangs and pulleys. Even more extensive damage is possible if there are no safety cables on the door.

The third problem with expired extension springs is that one side fatigues before the other. When this happens, one side pulls up before the other, and the top section hits the pulley or mounting bolt, causing the door to stop. This is also why we discourage customers from buying only one spring. The door will not open or close evenly, causing additional problems with wear, binding, and rollers coming out of the tracks.

The primary advantage of longer life springs is that since they normally last about three times longer than the standard springs, you may never have any of these problems.

Source of above & full text @

Sectional Garage Door Extension Springs

Garage door extension springs for sectional overhead-type residential, commercial and industrial doors. We give instructions on replacing broken extension springs and worn pulleys.

ddmgaragedoors.com

 

[Bucko]

There is no way to really tell because they are rated for the amount of times they are cycled and one person may open the garage once a week and a big family could open it several times a day. You could change it after so many years but it could still be only half used. As long as the safety cable is properly installed you are fine.

 

[bbbarracuda]

I've lived in my house almost 35 years. Two car garage, one door opens multiple times daily, other one, maybe every 3 or four days.
The busy door has broken springs 3 or 4 times. The other door once.
The safety wire usually saves most problems, but one time the safety wire broke as well. The safety did catch the spring before it snapped, so it just fell straight down and didn't fly around the room.
My door doesn't have cable for safety wire, just solid tie wire. It probably would be a good upgrade for me to change to cable.

 

[Walkers]

Not sure why anyone would install that type of spring on that type of door? Personally, I would change it over to the torsion springs and get rid of those extension springs.

 

[mrvm]

DDM Garage Doors is my go to reference on the topic. Several years ago I believe there was a thread here about extension springs that let loose and there were no Safety Cables installed.

Extension springs often fatigue before they break. Others just break without warning.

Longer Life Extension Springs are now available. In our tests here at DDM Garage Doors, Inc. we have found that the standard cycle life springs start to gap at just over 7,000 cycles. These will usually work beyond 10,000 cycles, but only after additional gapping or until the spring breaks. We also found that at this point, the springs are gapped an extra inch or so. Three problems occur as a result of springs gapping.

One is that the springs lift about 10% less. On a 200 pound door that is about 20 pounds, and if the opener force is properly set, the opener will stop lifting the door just after it starts.

A second problem that frequently occurs is that when the door opens, the cables loosen and fall off the pulleys. When the homeowner tries to close the garage door, it jambs and reverses. Often the stretch can be adjusted, but tests have shown that after springs get multiple gaps, they will continue to grow an inch or more every 1,000 cycles. They are also more likely to break, causing damage to hangs and pulleys. Even more extensive damage is possible if there are no safety cables on the door.

The third problem with expired extension springs is that one side fatigues before the other. When this happens, one side pulls up before the other, and the top section hits the pulley or mounting bolt, causing the door to stop. This is also why we discourage customers from buying only one spring. The door will not open or close evenly, causing additional problems with wear, binding, and rollers coming out of the tracks.

The primary advantage of longer life springs is that since they normally last about three times longer than the standard springs, you may never have any of these problems.

Source of above & full text @

Sectional Garage Door Extension Springs

Garage door extension springs for sectional overhead-type residential, commercial and industrial doors. We give instructions on replacing broken extension springs and worn pulleys.

ddmgaragedoors.com

Learned a lot of important information just from visiting the DDM website. Thanks

 

[mrvm]

Not sure why anyone would install that type of spring on that type of door?

Sort of agree as the (safe) spring resting state is when the doors are open. Just remember to duck during closing LOL. On another property a torsion spring broke but the metal shaft in the center controlled it.

 

[Stuart in MN]

DDM Garage Doors is my go to reference on the topic. Several years ago I believe there was a thread here about extension springs that let loose and there were no Safety Cables installed.

Extension springs often fatigue before they break. Others just break without warning.

Longer Life Extension Springs are now available. In our tests here at DDM Garage Doors, Inc. we have found that the standard cycle life springs start to gap at just over 7,000 cycles. These will usually work beyond 10,000 cycles, but only after additional gapping or until the spring breaks. We also found that at this point, the springs are gapped an extra inch or so. Three problems occur as a result of springs gapping.

10,000 cycles is what I was told to use as a rule of thumb for torsion springs as well. I had one break some years back, I did some estimating on how many cycles it had gone through over time and it was right at about that 10,000 mark.

 

[BikingEngineer]

I had an extension spring break, and just used the opportunity to switch over to a torsion spring. The failure mode is quite a bit less scary in a worst-case scenario, and ended up being quite a bit quieter than the extension springs ever were as a bonus.

 

[FMB4]

Replace with a torsion system and be done with it (like Walkers above wisely says).

 

[FredWanaker]

I am in my early 70's. I remember seeing the big dents in cars, and the holes in roofs before safety cables on extension springs. Torsion springs are the way to go. I replace about every 10 +/- years. 5 x a day x 365 days x 10 years = 18,250 cycles in that 10 year period. I've never seen pending signs of a failure. They just break.

 

[mikedodge]

There's no telltale sign they just break.

 

[SweetD]

I had a guy from the garage door company come over to do a "tune-up" on our system that was about 13 years old. He didn't do much, made a couple adjustments and lubed it up.

Two weeks later one of the springs let go, just like the OPs, even damaged the eye bolt in the same way. Safety cable caught it. Replaced them myself. Waiting for the other door to go now, and wondering if I should proactively replace the springs on it...

 

[mrvm]

I had a guy from the garage door company come over to do a "tune-up" on our system that was about 13 years old. He didn't do much, made a couple adjustments and lubed it up.

Two weeks later one of the springs let go, just like the OPs, even damaged the eye bolt in the same way. Safety cable caught it. Replaced them myself. Waiting for the other door to go now, and wondering if I should proactively replace the springs on it...

Replace in pairs and check out the website posted by @LB-1911 for more info.