Broken Torsion Spring on an Oak Lawn Garage

Plenty of Oak Lawn garages are brick or block, and the header above the opening is not always the timber the hardware expects. The centre bearing plate and the two end plates have to be anchored into something that will hold against a loaded spring. On older builds we sometimes find them lagged into a rotted wood filler or straight into a mortar joint. That gets corrected before a new spring goes on.

Headroom matters too. The single-car garages built here in the fifties were tight, and where an opening was later widened the shaft often ended up higher, lower or shorter than the door wants. We measure shaft, drums and cable length rather than assume the last installer got it right.

On a two-spring setup both were wound the same day and have taken the same number of cycles. When one breaks the other is not far behind. Replacing a single spring leaves mismatched loads on the shaft and, most likely, a second call within a season.

A spring's working life is measured in cycles rather than in calendar time. A door on an attached garage that the family treats as the main entrance runs through them far faster than a detached garage opened twice a week. If yours is the first kind, ask about a higher cycle rating while we are quoting.