Your garage door springs play an important role in keeping your home protected against potential threats like trespassers, pests, and bad weather conditions. As a homeowner, you may not think about your garage door system all too often, but understanding its components can help you keep your house and its inhabitants safe.   

The springs are among the most important components of your garage door system. More specifically, many garage doors have torsion springs, which are situated horizontally across the garage ceiling. Torsion springs hold mechanical energy and twist, lengthening and coiling up, to move the doors up and down.

When you activate your garage door opener, torsion springs unwind, which releases energy and allows the door to raise. On the other hand, closing the garage door causes the springs to coil back up, building their mechanical energy for the next time you need to open it.

The type of springs designed to best suit your garage door typically varies by manufacturer. Factors like the weight of the doors should be considered when replacing torsion springs, but usually, homeowners choose to replace their springs with new ones of the same size. While you should always select the size appropriate for your doors, you may wish to consider garage door springs with longer lifetimes.

Regular springs typically have life spans of 10,000 cycles, meaning they can raise and lower the door 10,000 times before needing replacement. This will usually last homeowners between five to seven years. Some high-cycle springs, however, boast lifetimes up to 100,000 cycles.

If you suspect your springs are nearing the end of their lifetime, it’s critical to enlist the help of garage door maintenance experts instead of trying to replace them yourself. A broken torsion spring can lead to severe injuries and even death, as the force of a 200-pound garage door falling down can be fatal.

As the leading garage door sales and services company in Tomah, WI, Mid-State Door & Opener Co. has the tools, knowledge, and experience needed to perform garage door maintenance safely and efficiently. Their team has kept local residents safe and protected with their expert services for more than 25 years, and they specialize in garage door spring replacement, as well as full installations. To set up an appointment with one of their experts, call (608) 372-9681. You can also visit the website and Facebook page to learn more.