Extension Springs, Pulleys and Cables in Evanston

Extension springs are not connected to each other. They stay balanced only because they are the same spring doing the same work, and once one has stretched further than the other the door begins lifting crooked. On a wide two-car door that creeps up on you. On the narrow single-car openings common in Evanston's alley garages it shows immediately, because there is less door to absorb the twist and a top corner starts catching the track.

So both go at once, matched rating, same visit. A door running one new spring against one badly stretched one will be back out of balance before the season is out, and by then the cables have taken the difference.

The rear of each horizontal track and the spring hanger bolt into the framing at the back of the garage. In an older detached building that framing is often the original rough-sawn lumber, and the lag screw in it has frequently been working itself loose for years without anyone looking up.

Before hanging new springs we check what they will hang from, add blocking where the wood no longer holds a fastener, and anchor into fresh material rather than reuse a hole that has already given up. Every extension spring we fit also gets a containment cable run through it as standard.