Merrillville, IN · Same-day service
Extension Springs on Merrillville's Older Garages
Here is how to identify which system you have, from inside the garage, in about ten seconds. Look along the ceiling either side of the door. Extension springs sit up there, one per side, stretched horizontally alongside the flat run of track and hooked to a pulley at the far end.
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That layout turns up on the narrower and older doors around town: original single-car openings, detached garages behind the houses that predate the build-out, and anything hung before wide doubles became the default. It works, it has worked for decades, and it fails in a way a torsion system does not.
A stretched spring is a loaded spring, and it lets go sideways
A torsion spring releases its energy into the shaft it is already mounted on. An extension spring has nothing running through it. When one parts under load, the halves whip along the line of the track, which is why every extension setup is supposed to have a containment cable threaded straight through the middle of the coil and anchored at both ends.
Plenty of doors on the older streets here still have no cable through the spring. It is the first thing we look for, and one goes in on any spring job whether the original had one or not.
Matched by lift rating, not by the look of them
Extension springs are rated for the weight they lift, and the rating is normally a color daub on the coil that has long since been painted over or corroded off. Fitting a pair without knowing the rating is guessing, and a guess on one side gives you a door that rises with one corner leading.
So the door gets weighed and two springs of the same rating go on together. Pulleys and sheaves come off and get inspected at the same time, because a seized pulley shreds the lift cable running over it and that is a repeat visit waiting to happen.
The rest of the hardware in an extension system
This system has more small parts than a torsion one, and they wear at different rates. S-hooks open up. Pulley forks elongate at the bolt hole. Cable ends fray where they pass over a stiff sheave. The rear anchor at the horizontal track hanger works loose after years of being pulled on.
None of that shows up in a photo of the spring. It shows up when someone has the door disconnected and the tension off, which is the only sensible time to deal with any of it.
Other work we do in Merrillville
- Torsion Springs
- Roller Repair
- Panel Replacement
- Smart Openers
- Commercial
- Custom Doors
- Maintenance
- Safety Inspection
- Lubrication
- Spring Replacement
- Opener Repair
- Installation
- Emergency Service
- Cable Repair
- Track Repair
Extension Springs in nearby towns
More on extension spring replacement, or everything we cover in Merrillville.
Questions
Merrillville questions about this job
My springs have not snapped, but the door is heavy and slow. Is that still a spring problem?
Usually. Extension springs lose tension gradually as the steel takes a set, so instead of a bang you get a door that has grown heavier over a couple of seasons and an opener that has started straining. Lifting it by hand with the opener disconnected tells you in a minute.
The door goes up with one side leading. One spring or both?
Both, in practice. Uneven lift means the two sides are no longer pulling the same, and putting one new spring against one tired one leaves the mismatch in place. They are fitted as a pair for the same reason tires are.
Is there anything I should check myself between services?
Look for a cable running through the inside of each spring, and look at the lift cables where they wrap the bottom bracket for broken strands. Do not put a tool on anything under tension. Looking is safe; loosening is not.
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