The Life of a Torsion Springs
Replace torsion springs on a garage door. You may find that my experience either frightens you from trying such a stunt yourself, or encourages you to give it a try. You may curse me for revealing the techniques supposedly known only to the trade, or perhaps thank me for explaining how it's done. All the secrets are revealed below. Even if you hire this work out, just knowing how it is done will help you shop for the best deal and avoid falling prey to overcharging tricks.
Torsion springs are devices that lift most of the weight of a garage door so that the door can be opened manually or by an electric opener. The torsion principle is applied via an efficient and economical apparatus consisting of a torsion shaft under spring torsion, which turns lift drums, which wind cables attached to the door near the bottom. All of this apparatus is mounted over the top of the door. The energy stored is sufficient, in an uncontrolled release, to break things, hurt you, or perhaps even kill you. The same could be said of jacking up your car to change a tire, or mowing your lawn, or raising children, so it is not crazy to want to do this yourself.
This page does not discuss what are called "extension springs", which are involved in a different door lift design that use springs running above the horizontal portion of the door track, perpendicular to the door.
Torsion springs are devices that lift most of the weight of a garage door so that the door can be opened manually or by an electric opener. The torsion principle is applied via an efficient and economical apparatus consisting of a torsion shaft under spring torsion, which turns lift drums, which wind cables attached to the door near the bottom. All of this apparatus is mounted over the top of the door. The energy stored is sufficient, in an uncontrolled release, to break things, hurt you, or perhaps even kill you. The same could be said of jacking up your car to change a tire, or mowing your lawn, or raising children, so it is not crazy to want to do this yourself.
This page does not discuss what are called "extension springs", which are involved in a different door lift design that use springs running above the horizontal portion of the door track, perpendicular to the door.
Hey, Isn't This Dangerous or Illegal for Us Do-It-Yourselfers?
If you've researched this subject at all, you will no doubt have heard that you shouldn't be attempting torsion spring replacement as a do-it-yourselfer. That is generally good advice, so if you have any doubts about your abilities to do risky physical work on your own, hire the job out like everyone else. I found I was capable of doing this work with acceptable risk, because I intelligently understood the techniques, paid careful attention to methods and safety, knew how to use common tools in good condition, properly improvised the special tools I didn't have, and diligently attended to correctly performing a few moments of hazardous manipulation. I learned to do it purely on my own based mostly on bits of advice reluctantly given in Internet forums such as the Usenet newsgroup alt.home.repair. When I first wrote this page in 2002, there was no other do-it-yourself information available on the Web, and it was not until 2005 that reliable information disclosing the techniques started to appear elsewhere (see links below).
I am also an engineer, and have always done a lot of mechanical repairs around the house. I also operate my own laboratory machine shop, and do some mechanical design work there. This background helped me figure things out, but nothing that involved is critical to repairing a standard garage door.
This work is risky, but the risk is comparable to doing your own car repairs, or climbing on the roof of your house to clean your gutters. These are dangerous things that many people can do safely, but that safety depends on intelligent understanding and application of proper techniques. Professional door repair technicians, who are fully knowledgable, skilled, and experienced, report that they nevertheless are injured from time to time, despite their best efforts. Coldly evaluate your abilities and motivations, to judge whether you can manage the risks of this work for the benefit of the money and time you might save.
Obtaining Parts May Be the Hardest Part of the JobEven if you are intelligent and skilled enough to do this repair, and as much as it may frustrate your instincts for self-sufficiency, you may be prevented from doing this work yourself by a system of commerce that refuses to take your money for the parts.
Manufacturers and distributors of torsion springs believe they are better off not retailing their product directly to the public. They believe they are maintaining higher prices for their product by restricting sales "to the trade." One brochure for parts even flatly stated, "We do not sell to the end user. We protect our dealers," which would seem to be prima facie evidence of an illegal restraint-of-trade scheme. But this is an old story which is true of virtually every product and service, going back to medieval guilds and before.
Repair of garage doors is a licensed trade in many jurisdictions, and manipulation of the market inevitably follows. Look in your phone book yellow-pages under "garage doors" and you'll find a lot of big, costly ads for door service. The profits are quite juicy, I'm sure. The customers need service urgently, and this need will typically arrive suddenly and at a busy time when shopping for prices is not convenient. A few dollars in parts, an hour of labor and travel, and a $350 invoice (assuming the outfit is charging fairly, some are not). Lately (2006) I hear of outfits charging $700 or $800 for this work, and occasionally a story of a $900 or $950 service call. You'll also find the phonebook advertisers waiting eagerly for your call, because artificially high prices inevitably lead to an oversupply of service firms working under capacity.
Those who benefit from this anti-competitive behavior have many excuses for it. They claim that the product is too dangerous and infrequently needed for the public to purchase directly. They say the job is hazardous and requires techniques and tools with which the amateur will rarely practice, which is true. They write me in anger saying I don't understand how expensive it is to put a truck on the road with a technician and parts and salary and benefits and insurance and advertising and every other common business expense. They say it will take the homeowner hours of effort to do this safely and correctly, while they can do it in a fraction of that time and at a price that isn't worth the effort to save. But should they set themselves up as the judge of what you can and cannot do? Of what is an economical use of your time? Imposing minimum order quantities or charging retail prices for small orders is legitimate; inquiring into the purchaser's background is not.
If this manipulative, we-are-your-nanny business approach is truly in our best interests as consumers, then we shouldn't be allowed near ladders, lawn mowers, or power tools. Those products are just as hazardous and prone to misuse as torsion springs, yet no one thinks of them as forbidden. The only genuine difference is that torsion springs are a hazardous thing you need only rarely, while a lawn mower is a hazardous thing you need all the time.
The one excuse that makes the most sense is, "if we sell springs to a do-it-yourselfer, and he gets hurt installing it, we could get sued." I can sympathize with someone who wants to sell only to the trade and not bother with the risk of a spurious product liability lawsuit from an ignorant member of the public. But the lawn-mower dealers have figured out how to manage that kind of exposure, so this is not an absolute barrier to retailing garage door parts to the public. It doesn't explain why torsion springs at retail are virtually non-existent.
These are just my observations as a consumer; I am not on a crusade to change the garage door industry. But I will observe that the Web is the innovation that can finally give intelligent consumers the advantage in these commercial games. Trade restraints work only when all sellers in the market collude in and agree to the scheme. If anyone, anywhere is selling freely, then the Web can help you find them. In the years since I have first published this information, a number of reputable Web-based merchants have appeared to supply the parts you need to repair your garage door as a do-it-yourself
If you've researched this subject at all, you will no doubt have heard that you shouldn't be attempting torsion spring replacement as a do-it-yourselfer. That is generally good advice, so if you have any doubts about your abilities to do risky physical work on your own, hire the job out like everyone else. I found I was capable of doing this work with acceptable risk, because I intelligently understood the techniques, paid careful attention to methods and safety, knew how to use common tools in good condition, properly improvised the special tools I didn't have, and diligently attended to correctly performing a few moments of hazardous manipulation. I learned to do it purely on my own based mostly on bits of advice reluctantly given in Internet forums such as the Usenet newsgroup alt.home.repair. When I first wrote this page in 2002, there was no other do-it-yourself information available on the Web, and it was not until 2005 that reliable information disclosing the techniques started to appear elsewhere (see links below).
I am also an engineer, and have always done a lot of mechanical repairs around the house. I also operate my own laboratory machine shop, and do some mechanical design work there. This background helped me figure things out, but nothing that involved is critical to repairing a standard garage door.
This work is risky, but the risk is comparable to doing your own car repairs, or climbing on the roof of your house to clean your gutters. These are dangerous things that many people can do safely, but that safety depends on intelligent understanding and application of proper techniques. Professional door repair technicians, who are fully knowledgable, skilled, and experienced, report that they nevertheless are injured from time to time, despite their best efforts. Coldly evaluate your abilities and motivations, to judge whether you can manage the risks of this work for the benefit of the money and time you might save.
Obtaining Parts May Be the Hardest Part of the JobEven if you are intelligent and skilled enough to do this repair, and as much as it may frustrate your instincts for self-sufficiency, you may be prevented from doing this work yourself by a system of commerce that refuses to take your money for the parts.
Manufacturers and distributors of torsion springs believe they are better off not retailing their product directly to the public. They believe they are maintaining higher prices for their product by restricting sales "to the trade." One brochure for parts even flatly stated, "We do not sell to the end user. We protect our dealers," which would seem to be prima facie evidence of an illegal restraint-of-trade scheme. But this is an old story which is true of virtually every product and service, going back to medieval guilds and before.
Repair of garage doors is a licensed trade in many jurisdictions, and manipulation of the market inevitably follows. Look in your phone book yellow-pages under "garage doors" and you'll find a lot of big, costly ads for door service. The profits are quite juicy, I'm sure. The customers need service urgently, and this need will typically arrive suddenly and at a busy time when shopping for prices is not convenient. A few dollars in parts, an hour of labor and travel, and a $350 invoice (assuming the outfit is charging fairly, some are not). Lately (2006) I hear of outfits charging $700 or $800 for this work, and occasionally a story of a $900 or $950 service call. You'll also find the phonebook advertisers waiting eagerly for your call, because artificially high prices inevitably lead to an oversupply of service firms working under capacity.
Those who benefit from this anti-competitive behavior have many excuses for it. They claim that the product is too dangerous and infrequently needed for the public to purchase directly. They say the job is hazardous and requires techniques and tools with which the amateur will rarely practice, which is true. They write me in anger saying I don't understand how expensive it is to put a truck on the road with a technician and parts and salary and benefits and insurance and advertising and every other common business expense. They say it will take the homeowner hours of effort to do this safely and correctly, while they can do it in a fraction of that time and at a price that isn't worth the effort to save. But should they set themselves up as the judge of what you can and cannot do? Of what is an economical use of your time? Imposing minimum order quantities or charging retail prices for small orders is legitimate; inquiring into the purchaser's background is not.
If this manipulative, we-are-your-nanny business approach is truly in our best interests as consumers, then we shouldn't be allowed near ladders, lawn mowers, or power tools. Those products are just as hazardous and prone to misuse as torsion springs, yet no one thinks of them as forbidden. The only genuine difference is that torsion springs are a hazardous thing you need only rarely, while a lawn mower is a hazardous thing you need all the time.
The one excuse that makes the most sense is, "if we sell springs to a do-it-yourselfer, and he gets hurt installing it, we could get sued." I can sympathize with someone who wants to sell only to the trade and not bother with the risk of a spurious product liability lawsuit from an ignorant member of the public. But the lawn-mower dealers have figured out how to manage that kind of exposure, so this is not an absolute barrier to retailing garage door parts to the public. It doesn't explain why torsion springs at retail are virtually non-existent.
These are just my observations as a consumer; I am not on a crusade to change the garage door industry. But I will observe that the Web is the innovation that can finally give intelligent consumers the advantage in these commercial games. Trade restraints work only when all sellers in the market collude in and agree to the scheme. If anyone, anywhere is selling freely, then the Web can help you find them. In the years since I have first published this information, a number of reputable Web-based merchants have appeared to supply the parts you need to repair your garage door as a do-it-yourself
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