I came home to my garage door not opening yesterday. Turns out one of the springs on the door broke. It is a single car garage door with extension springs. From a brief online search it seems like replacing by myself would not be too difficult.

The spring that broke was painted tan on the end, which I learned means it is rated for 100 pounds. The spring on the other side of this door and both springs on my other garage door are painted yellow (130 pounds). Everything I have read says to replace with the same as what was there, but I can't find anything about having springs with different ratings.

Should I replace with a tan or yellow spring?

I don't have an answer to your color question, but if you are unsure in the slightest of your ability to wind the spring without it getting away from you, hire someone. The rods can break bones or kill you when they fly out of the fitting. I did the door on my trailer when it was hotter than hell outside. The rod slipped due to sweaty hands, and put a hole in the roof of the trailer. It went through 3/8" plywood and the roof skin.

Thanks for the feedback. If it was a torsion spring like yours, I would definitely hire someone to replace it. But this is an extension spring, so it appears to be much less dangerous to replace.

Yellow....

I would think two different ratings could lead to the door getting cattywompus.

I diy quite a bit... garage spring replacement is not one of them and it's not too expensive to get someone out to do it for you. Especially in a hot garage.

Hire someone.

100% hire someone. Have a family friend that slit his throat trying to replace his when it got away from him. Garage doors are the one thing I won't even attempt to fix if it has anything to do with the spring.

You are saving yourself a couple hundred dollars at the risk of pretty serious injury....

Not sure I was following you as to which spring broke....

Extension springs are not the same as torsion springs that are dangerous.

Mine go slack when the door is in the full up position and would have no qualms about replacing one.

If the other one is yellow and the other two on the other door are yellow, I would go back with yellow.

may be the reason this one broke.

I would force the door up and brace it to take the pressure off the spring then replace.

How to Replace a Garage Door Extension Spring - Bing video


Torsion springs? hire a professional.

He can replace extension springs. I did it when I was a young teen for my parents.

Torsion springs are the dangerous ones.

I would replace with the same springs that were originally there.

I had torsion springs in my old house and I had to fix one using a couple of pipe wrenches and brute force when I was much younger. Looking back, it was an idiotic decision and nearly lost control of it twice. I have the extension springs now and I could see that being very easy when they are not extended and the door is up if you can get to the area with any ease.

Torsion springs with pipe wrenches??? Dang you are lucky to be alive. For real.

bam02 said:

---

Torsion springs with pipe wrenches??? Dang you are lucky to be alive. For real.

---

Definitely not one of my finer moments. I worked on drilling jobs and thought "they can bite and hold".

Wow, I puckered up just reading this.

I've done a few torsion springs. Simple enough but demands a lot of respect. Wouldn't recommend DIY for most people.

I ended up going with yellow. It's working fine as of now.

It was a very simple job. Took me about 45 minutes and that was with putting the pulley on the wrong direction the first time.

I remember using the header and putting a bind on one pipe wrench while getting a better grip on the other. Then torqueing it while trying to see if the tension was too much and would make the door shoot up through the back wall taking my head with it. Definitely a really, really Darwin move I survived.