Monday, January 26, 2009

Garage Door Springs Replacement: A Do It Yourself Project Or Not?

By Steven Gullit

There are several things in a home that are very hard to fix by yourself, when you are not a specialist. Amongst them, garage door springs are the most dangerous. Garage owners should not attempt to replace or repair the springs without help from at least one more person, and that would better be someone who did that before.

The danger of replacing garage door springs resides in the fact that their operating principle supposes they accumulate significant levels of tension, in order to be able to move the doors to let us in and out of the garage.

Why would you let yourself killed by a garage door spring, when you can call a specialist and ask him to replace all broken parts, so you can enjoy your garage door again and stay in good health?

If one of your garage door springs needs replacement, you'll have to actually change both springs. Although only one has been damaged, the other was exposed to the same degree of wearing, so it is possible, if not very probable that it will break over the following days, weeks or months.

Don't even think to do the operation yourself, if you don't manage to buy or rent a spring tensioning tool. Torsion springs cannot be tensioned with bare hands or with improvised tools.

Garage doors from the last generation may have torsion springs that can be tensioned with the help of an electric drill. Such doors are much safer when it comes to replacing their springs, so you'd probably manage to do it by yourself. Even so, you need to know what's all about, in order to avoid troubles.

Garage door fixing professionals can be found in Yellow Pages or on the internet, and they are usually fairly cheap, taking into consideration the high level of danger this job implies.

The price of hiring an expert to fix your garage door springs may vary between 75 and 200 dollars, but there are cases when they might ask as much as 800 dollars. Usually, they include the replacement of any other broken parts such as the rollers or the drums. Hiring a pro is your decision, but please be aware that torsion springs are not at all a do it yourself project. - 20896

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