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O/T Garage door

A

Anonymous-0

Well-known Member
This is about as o/t as it gets. My garage door has never been right. Very hard to open, and closes very fast. The older I get the harder it is to open. I have tightened the springs (two on each side) but it does little good. I was thinking of adding another spring on each side. Anyone here have any experience with garage doors? Stan
 
Have someone who does professional installations come look at it. Those springs get fatigued and break, explosively. Adding the wrong spring in the wrong place could make a death trap out of your garage.
 
yep i'd do like steve said and have someone come look at it. I've never seen a garage door with 2 springs per side. i bet they are the wrong springs for the door.
 
how big is that door? 2 springs each side? wood or pan steel?I used to install garage doors. Is it one of those one piece doors?
 
Sounds like it has the wrong springs, but instead of buying the right ones ($$$) after your friendly garage door guy comes out (more $$$), consider adding a counterweight to each side (5 gallon bucket with rope and pulleys, at a total cost of about 5 bucks)- attach in such a way as to assist the door in coming up, then experiment with adding/ removing rocks/scrap metal to the bucket. Bet you can fine-tune it to where even a Lithuanian dwarf can handle it easily.
 
OIL the springs if it is torsion type (coil spring around the shaft).

I have fixed many that way, never have replaced one unless it broke.

Give it lots of oil, but try not to let it drip on the door, a oil soaked gunny sack works well to rub on them.

And as I tell everyone-- this is not a joke, it will work 90% of the time.

I often tell folks to do this and they don't because they think it doesn't work--I get a srvice call out of the deal.
 
When I had this house built I had a 16-foot wooden garage door and I was always breaking springs. I couldn't lift the door unless I used a bumper jack to get it up several feet so I could lift it and prop it up with a piece of lumber while I installed a new spring. In 1994 we decided to get an insulated 16-foot metal door
with the torsion bar. We use that as the main entrance with the door opener so it gets a lot of use. So far haven't had any broken springs in the last 15 years. Hal
 
I forgot to tell you the springs used on the wooden door were dual springs with a spring within a spring. When they broke it sounded like a gun going off and it ruined the angle iron that supported the track. It was a good thing no one was around when they broke. Hal
 
had an overhead garage door guy tell me the same thing about oiling the coils,I think the rust between the coils causes friction/drag.Worked on the doors at work when they started to drag going up. Bill M.
 
Hi chief, When the spring tension is correct,The door should stay open half way up,If it tries to close it need more tension..If it has has those stretch spring up on the side of the top rail, do yourself a favor and get it changed to a torsion bar and spring above the header of the door...just my two cents..Jim in N M
 
Just year before last , Mine has the coil springs one on each side. One broke, and like already mentioned sounded like a gun going off.

Rollers needed oiled too. I don't like heavy oil such as motor oil , learned WD 40 more often intervals keeps the dust washed out better creating easier movement.

Not recommended to replace only one spring, as in old folk the older we get the weaker we get.

There are different colors of springs representing different lifting weights or power to lift larger doors. also they have a safety kit that involves a cable threaded inside of spring in case of failure so spring can't fly across the area someone could be standing.

If you think it a possibility that someone could be somewhere in the garage area if that happened I'd suggest you build a box with a glass front, Hang it on the wall with a roll of toilet paper inside, and a small hammer for easy access.
 
My 18' door has two springs per side. But not one inside of the other.

Gotta have the right springs for the door width and weight.
 
One end of the spring is sprayed with paint, white, blue, etc. Go to lumber yard or maybe Lowes and they have abook telling what color paint for each sized door. Sounds like yours are too weak. Either buy a cable kit for each side or buy a length of 1/8 inch cable and some clamps and make your own I did.
 
The guy I once worked for paid a overhead door company milage--50 plus each way, and two men in the pickup, to come up and oil his door. He would not listen to me, as I was pretty young at the time. Even after I watched them oil it the first time.

The loader was in the shop, and I lifted the guy up both times for the boss to save him money, (at his request). We had to move a five gallon bucket of waste oil so we would not spill it.

We also used the bosses oil can both times. After that us hired men would just oil it once a year when the boss wasn't around.
 
The company that make PB Blaster that we all love so much also makes a garage door lube it is a dry lube that does not collect dust.
 
we usually sprayed hem with oil and then spread the coils out I won't tell how as someone might try it and get hurt
 
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