Garage Door Spring Replacement Adelaide
Broken garage door spring? The bang from the garage, the door that has become too heavy to lift, and the opener that hums without moving anything all point to the same part. We replace and re-tension torsion and extension springs across the Adelaide CBD and the inner suburbs, sized to your door's weight and height, and check the door's balance and the opener before we leave.
Licenced & insured · Same-day service · Adelaide CBD & suburbs within 10 km
Types of garage door springs we replace
A garage door can weigh well over 100 kilograms, yet lift with one hand — the springs carry that weight. Two spring systems do the work, and which one you have decides what the replacement involves.
Torsion springs
Mounted on a shaft above the door and wound tight, torsion springs do the lifting by turning the shaft and the cable drums. Most sectional doors run a pair — one left-hand wound and one right-hand wound — so the door is lifted evenly on both sides.
Extension springs
Fitted beside the horizontal tracks and stretched as the door closes, extension springs are common on older tilt and sectional doors. They fail by stretching or snapping, so a safety cable should always run through the middle of the spring.
Single and double spring set-ups
Lighter doors can be balanced on a single spring, while heavier and wider doors need two springs sharing the load. On a two-spring door, both springs have done the same amount of work and are usually at a similar point in their life.
Commercial torsion systems
Larger commercial and industrial doors often run bigger springs, and sometimes more than two on one shaft, so the load is spread and the door still lifts smoothly. These systems are specified for the door's weight and for how often it runs each day.
Spring sizes, cycle ratings and heavy-duty springs
Garage door springs are not a generic part you can match by looking at them. A spring is specified against the door it lifts, using a handful of measurements, and the combination has to be right — a spring that is too light lets the door drop, and one that is too heavy overloads the opener and twists the door.
The thickness of the spring wire — heavier wire lifts more door weight.
The bore of the spring, which has to match the shaft and drums it turns.
Set by the door height and the lift the spring has to provide.
Torsion springs are wound left-hand and right-hand and are fitted as a matched pair.
Where the calculation starts — the weight of the door decides what fits, not its width.
How many open-and-close cycles the spring is built for before it should be replaced.
High-cycle springs for doors that work hard
Springs are rated in cycles — one open and close is one cycle — rather than in years. A standard spring is built for a set number of cycles, which is generous on a door that runs twice a day and used up quickly on a door that runs constantly.
A heavy-duty, high-cycle spring is made from heavier wire and rated for several times the cycles of a standard spring. It is specified to the same door weight and dimensions, so it fits the door you already have — the difference is how long it keeps working before it needs attention again.
It is worth considering where the door gets a lot of use: a busy household where cars come and go all day, a shared driveway, a strata or multi-unit garage, or any door that is opened by several people every day. On a door that is used once in the morning and once at night, the standard rating is usually all you need.
Commercial and industrial spring work
Commercial doors change the equation, because they are bigger, heavier and often run many times a day. A door that is out of action can stop deliveries, block access or leave a building unsecured, so the springs and the parts around them need to be rated for the duty the door actually does.
We work on commercial and industrial doors as well as residential ones — larger torsion systems, high-cycle springs, multiple springs on a shaft, and the cables, drums and bearings that share the load with them. If a door is failing repeatedly, we look at the door's weight and balance and at how often it runs, rather than replacing parts one at a time.
Signs a spring has broken or is failing
- A loud bang from the garage, often heard from inside the house
- The door is suddenly far too heavy to lift by hand
- A visible gap in the spring, or the coils sitting loose on the shaft
- The door opens a little and then stops, or jolts part way up
- One side of the door sits lower than the other
- The opener strains, shudders or hums without lifting the door
- The door drifts down instead of staying where it is left
- Cables sitting loose or slack after the bang
Why springs break
Every open and close takes a little life out of a spring. Springs are rated in cycles, so a door used many times a day reaches the end of its rating far sooner than a door used twice a day.
Steel springs corrode over time, and salt in the air near the coast speeds it up. Corrosion makes the wire brittle, so the spring breaks earlier than its cycle rating suggests.
A door that has been getting heavier — new lining, a car that has bumped it, worn rollers — or one that was tensioned incorrectly puts uneven load on the springs.
When two springs have shared the same work, they usually reach the end of their life at close to the same time, which is why the second spring often goes shortly after the first.
Don't run the door, and never cut a spring yourself
With a spring broken, the door has no support and the opener is trying to lift its full weight — which strains the motor and gearbox, and leaves a door that can come down without warning. Springs and cables are under high tension even when a door looks still. Leave the door closed, don't force it, and give us a call instead.
What spring replacement involves
Spring work is a repair, not a rebuild — but the choices matter. Here is what we look at, and what we can do about each one.
Replace the spring matched to your door
We read the door and the failed spring — wire size, inside diameter, length, wind direction and the door's weight — and fit a spring specified for that door. Springs are not interchangeable between doors.
Replace the pair on a two-spring door
Where two springs have done the same work, replacing both means one visit rather than two. We will explain what we found and let you decide, but it usually works out simpler and cheaper than being back in a few months.
Upgrade to a high-cycle spring
If the door runs many times a day, a heavy-duty spring is rated for several times the cycles. It fits the same door and shaft, so it is a straight swap for a longer working life.
Re-tension and balance the door
Not every spring problem is a broken spring. A door that is out of balance, that lifts unevenly or that strains the opener can often be corrected by setting the spring tension correctly.
Put right what the breakage damaged
When a spring lets go, the shock often damages the cables, drums, bearings or rollers around it. We inspect those parts at the same time so the door doesn't fail again next month.
Reset the opener afterwards
Once the door is balanced again, the opener's travel limits and force settings are checked and set, so the motor isn't working harder than it should and the safety reverse still works.
Heard a bang from the garage?
Call us with what you heard and what the door is doing now. We'll book a technician to measure the door and replace the spring it needs. For cable, roller and track faults alongside the springs, see our Adelaide garage door repair service.
Other garage door services in Adelaide
Adelaide suburbs we service
We work across the Adelaide CBD and the suburbs within roughly 7–10 km of it. If you're just inside that ring, you're in our regular run:
Slightly further out than this list, or booking commercial and multi-door work? Give us a call with your postcode and we'll confirm what we can do for you.
Garage door spring questions, answered
Call us today on 1300 110 430 or request a free quote
Licenced & insured · Same-day service · No call-out charges