Safety Tips for Garage Door Springs Repair

While garage door applications may vary from the others in their configurations, each application uses springs that support the mass of the garage door. Through methods of twisting or pulling, the garage door springs are made to create a force to counter gravity. Although garage doors can sometimes weigh more than 800 pounds, the force exerted by the springs is enough to cause serious bodily harm or worse.

Below, we will look at four essential safety tips to consider when you are performing any sort of garage door spring repair or general garage door springs replacement:

• Clear the worksite: In order to carry out a garage door spring repair, you’ll need access to the garage door’s components. On top of that, tools can fall over the back or front of any vehicles parked inside the garage, or on their windshield, damage them and cost unnecessary amounts of money. If you have any vehicles parked in the garage, be sure to pull them out as well as any valuable items that you don't want to risk. Should you find that the garage door is too heavy to lift, you should pull the vehicle forward, to the other end of the garage as far away as possible. In order to limit the risk of accidents, create a physical path across the garage door that has no obstacles, by moving them out of the way.
• Use compatible, solid torsion spring winding bars: Before you begin to wind up new torsion springs or unwind old ones, make sure you have solid winding bars that are able to be securely mounted in the garage door spring's winding cone. It measures a diameter of a half-inch, requiring you to have a half-inch torsion sprig winding bar. If you don't have this type of tool on hand, you can get in touch with a garage door repair company to have the winding bars supplied to you.
• Keep a safe buffer zone when you're working with the springs: During the process of repairing a garage door spring, when winding or unwinding the torsion spring, it is important to keep your body and head out of the way of the winding path. Because of the force that the spring creates, the high force put on the winding bars can cause harm if it slips from your grasp. This is because it will fall straight down and damage anything in its way.
• Secure the axle in place: After new garage door springs have been mounted to the proper bracket, use vice grips to ensure that the axle has been secured in place before you wind the new torsion springs. This makes sure that the garage door is secure in its closed position. Should you accidentally install the wrong size garage door springs, the force that is created by the springs will turn out to be greater than the mass of the garage door. This will cause it to pull up more quickly, which cannot just damage the garage door but can also knock you off the ladder you're on.

Those who are intent to perform garage door repair on their own, especially working on garage door springs, need to double-check that they are using the right sizes of springs. This is usually due to shopping from unreliable websites that have no qualms over selling the wrong sizes of springs without bothering to verify them with the customer.

Obtaining the Correct Garage Door Springs

 Because of the risk that is involved in replacing these springs, it is recommended that you buy your new torsion springs and garage springs from a local garage door company that is authorized to sell them. Through these companies, measurements can be taken either on site to ensure the proper fit, find out if the garage door should have 1 or 2 springs, and make necessary conversions if needed. In many cases, garage doors with 2 springs would work smoother than garage doors with a single spring system. Many customers will even take broken or worn springs to their local garage door repair companies to let them take these measurements and send them away with the proper spring size.

Remember, having the garage door in operation without the right garage door springs will damage it. A garage door that hasn’t been correctly balanced will wear down the garage door opener gears, bearings, hinges, and rollers, which could cause the garage door to go off its tracks.

Safety Tips for Garage Door Springs Repair - Conclusion

 Garage door spring repair can be a dangerous and difficult process for the untrained repairman or DIY’r, even for those with experience as a repair technician. In order to ensure the torsion springs are safely installed, it's a good idea to do plenty of research on the process and on the fundamentals of how to fix a garage door. Before going into the project, be sure you understand the actual mechanics of the systems and processes so that you can make better use of the tools you have. This could not only save valuable time, money and prevent damage to the garage door, but it could also be the difference between reducing the chance of injury and raising it.