The garage door spring snapped on a cold morning

Who they are

Dale is in his fifties and uses the garage door every day, twice a day at least. He has never thought about how it works because it has always just worked.

Their home and door

A two-car garage with the same steel sectional door that came with the house, a torsion spring above the opening, and a chain-drive opener.

What went wrong

On the first properly cold morning of the fall he pressed the button, heard a loud bang from above the door, and the door would not move. It had been fine the day before.

What they searched

• “garage spring repair”
• “garage door spring replacement”
• “can you use wd40 on garage door springs”

What they learned

• A sharp bang like a gunshot inside the garage usually means the torsion spring has broken. Source: Why won’t my garage door close?
• Standard residential torsion springs are rated for about 10,000 cycles. Cold does not cause the break; cold steel is more brittle, so a worn spring tends to give out on a cold morning. Source: Why garage door springs break in cold weather
• Springs are not a DIY job: do not wind, unwind, replace or adjust a torsion spring without training and the proper tools. Source: Why garage door springs break in cold weather