My garage door spring just broke. What do I do now?

A broken spring turns the door from a balanced object into a dead weight, and the next ten minutes should assume exactly that. The springs carry the door, not the opener. When a torsion spring lets go, the bang you heard was the coil failing, and what is left is 200 to 500 pounds held up by lift cables and an opener trolley that were never sized to hold it. The federal operator standard makes manufacturers print the reason in every manual: weak or broken springs may allow the door to fall rapidly. Nothing about this is a Saturday project. It is, however, a same-day repair, and the steps below keep a $300 job from turning into a $1,500 one.

The first ten minutes, in order

Unplug the opener before you do anything else. Everything after that is about keeping the door still and keeping people out from under it.

1. Unplug the opener at the ceiling outlet. A remote in a coat pocket or a keypad by the side door can still run it, and one press is how a broken spring becomes a bent door.
2. Clear the doorway. People, pets, bikes, trash cans. Anything you would not want under a falling door.
3. Leave the red release cord alone unless the door is fully down. The federal standard requires this warning in the manual: "if possible, use the emergency release only when the door is closed. Use caution when using this release with the door open."
4. Clamp the tracks if the door is up or partway up. Locking pliers or C-clamps, tight on both tracks just under the bottom roller. Clopay's own instructions use that step to hold a door in place while spring tension is off.
5. Park outside and work around the door until it is fixed.
6. Photograph the spring. A gap of an inch or two in the coil is the break. A technician can size the replacement from that photo plus a wire and length measurement, which is what makes a same-day fix possible.

Where the door is	Do this now	Do not
Fully closed	Leave it closed. Unplug the opener. Park outside.	Do not pull the release and try to lift it
Partly open	Leave it. Clamp both tracks under the bottom roller.	Do not run the opener to finish closing it
Fully open	Clamp both tracks first, then keep everyone clear.	Do not pull the red release cord
Car shut inside	Wait until the door is clamped or repaired.	Do not prop the door on a ladder or a board

Getting a trapped car out is its own problem, and we cover it in using a door with a broken spring.

Why you must not run the opener

An opener is sized to move a balanced door, not to lift a raw one. On a correctly tensioned door the springs offset nearly all the weight, and the motor supplies a nudge. Take the springs out of that equation and the same motor is asked for ten times the pull. DASMA states it flatly in its inspection checklist: "If a spring is broken, do not operate the door until the spring is replaced."

Press the button anyway and the damage picks one of a few paths. The plastic drive gear strips, which is a repair on top of your repair. The trolley or the opener arm tears through the top section, and now you are pricing a panel. One cable takes the whole load, jumps the drum, and the door racks in the tracks. Worst case the door comes down hard on whatever is under it.

There is a quieter cost too. A door that gets forced up on a broken spring often comes back down out of square, so the technician who arrives is now straightening tracks and re-seating cables before touching the spring. That is what turns a same-day visit into a longer one.

Can you lift it by hand, and what does it actually weigh

Usually you should not, and the numbers explain why. Clopay puts it plainly in its installation instructions: "Some large doors can weigh as much as 500 lbs. and single car doors as much as 200 lbs. when spring tension is removed." That is the weight sitting on you the moment the counterbalance is gone.

The way that weight arrives is the dangerous part. Clopay notes the load "will not be apparent when you first begin to close door," and that the door "will feel progressively heavier as it is lowered until its full weight is realized about one foot from floor." So a door feels manageable at chest height and then tries to take your fingers off near the slab. Anyone lifting or lowering a door with a broken spring needs two or more helpers, gloves, and a block of wood ready to set it down on.

The emergency release is designed around the door being down, not up. Under 16 CFR 1211 the release must detach the operator with 50 pounds of force applied by hand, "with the door obstructed in the down position," and must reach no more than 6 feet above the floor. Door down is the condition it was specified for. Door up with a broken spring is not.

One line has no exceptions. Do not touch the spring, the winding cones, the shaft, or the cables. DASMA's warning is that all repairs and adjustments must be done by a trained technician using proper tools, because a wound torsion spring stores enough energy to break bones. Our page on DIY spring replacement covers why the winding bars are the part that hurts people.

Same-day repair, and why the spring gave out

Most broken springs are a one-visit fix. Along the Front Range a standard torsion job runs about $200 to $500 including parts and labor, and shops carrying common spring sizes on the truck can usually finish the same day. The visit is straightforward: unload the remaining tension, swap the spring, re-wind to the door's weight, re-set the opener travel and force, then run the safety tests. Expect about an hour on a typical two-car door. Our page on spring replacement cost breaks down what moves the price, and replacing both springs covers why the second one usually goes at the same time.

It broke because it ran out of cycles, not because you did anything wrong. ANSI/DASMA 102 defines one cycle as the door moving from closed to fully open and back. A standard torsion spring is rated near 10,000 of those, which is roughly seven years at four openings a day. DASMA also lists what shortens that count, including rust and lack of counterbalance maintenance, noting that regular greasing "will help to maximize spring cycle life." A dry spring in an unheated Front Range garage gets there sooner. More detail sits on why springs break.

G Brothers runs garage door spring repair across Lakewood and the Denver metro, with flat-rate pricing quoted before work starts and 24/7 emergency service when a door is stuck open overnight. Call (720) 421-6489 and tell us what the door is doing.

Sources

The weights, warnings, and cycle figures here come from these.

• eCFR, 16 CFR Part 1211, Safety Standard for Automatic Residential Garage Door Operators
• DASMA, TDS 167, Residential Sectional Garage Door and Electric Operator Checklist
• Clopay, installation instructions, residential sectional 1-layer and 2-layer doors
• ANSI/DASMA, 102, Specifications for Sectional Doors
• DASMA, TDS 190, Factors Affecting Spring Cycle Life

Pricing reflects Front Range rates as of August 2026.