Garage door springs are the most dangerous component on the door, and they’re the only component that does real lifting. Everything else — the opener, the cables, the rollers, the track — either guides the door or moves the springs into position. The springs do the work. When one breaks, the door is essentially unmovable, and trying to force it up with the opener is the fastest way to take the opener and the door down together.
Silence Garage Door & Gates handles garage door spring service across the Greater Los Angeles area — replacements, conversions to higher-cycle springs, and the diagnostic work that tells us which spring system your door actually needs. This page covers what we do, why we do it that way, and what to expect when you call us out.
Why Garage Door Springs Fail
Every spring is rated for a number of cycles. One cycle is one open and one close. A standard contractor-grade torsion spring is rated for roughly ten thousand cycles — a number that sounds large until you realize that a family that runs their garage door four times a day will hit it inside seven years. Coastal humidity, dry heat, and infrequent lubrication all shorten the count.
Failure is almost always sudden. The spring doesn’t announce that it’s tired. The door cycles fine, fine, fine, and then one morning the spring breaks — usually right before the homeowner needs to leave for work. The signature is unmistakable: a sharp crack like a small-caliber gunshot from the garage, followed by a gap of an inch or two in what was previously a tightly wound coil on the shaft above the door.
Less common, but worth knowing: the spring can stretch out of useful tension without breaking. The door gets heavier over time, the opener has to fight harder on every cycle, and eventually the opener burns up. By the time the homeowner calls us about the opener, the actual problem is usually the spring.
The Two Spring Systems on a Residential Garage Door
Torsion Springs (the Modern Standard)
Torsion springs sit on a shaft above the door opening. They store energy by twisting tighter as the door closes and unwinding as the door opens. They are safer, smoother, longer-lived, and easier to balance than the alternative, which is why every residential door we install today uses torsion.
Most LA residential doors use a single torsion spring on small doors and a dual-spring setup on standard two-car doors. We’re sometimes called to a property where the door is too heavy for its single spring — a common shortcut on older builder-grade installations. The fix is to convert to a properly balanced dual-spring system, which extends the life of the door and the opener at the same time.
Extension Springs (Older Systems)
Extension springs run along the horizontal tracks on either side of the door, stretching as the door closes. They’re the older design — you’ll find them on a lot of pre-1990s installations across Los Angeles, especially on smaller doors and on detached older homes. They work, but they’re harder to balance and they’re more dangerous on failure: when an extension spring breaks under load, it can travel.
If your door still runs extension springs, we’ll often recommend a conversion to torsion. It’s a one-time job, and the door runs smoother and safer for the rest of its life.
How We Replace Garage Door Springs
Every spring service call starts with a full door assessment, not a parts swap. The spring is the failure point, but the spring is also a symptom — the springs on most doors fail in pairs because they were sized for the door and ran the same number of cycles. So we look at the whole system before we cut anything.
Our process: weigh the door (with a proper scale — not a guess), calculate the correct spring spec for the actual weight, confirm the cycle rating you want (standard, high-cycle, or extra-high-cycle), and quote the replacement. If both springs are within range we replace both; if only one is broken but the second is past its rated life, we’ll recommend replacing both at the same time because the second one is about to fail too — and you don’t want to pay for a second service call.
The replacement itself involves unloading the broken spring (or what’s left of it), pulling the cables off the drums, swapping the spring or springs, re-winding to the correct turn count for the door height and weight, re-cabling, and balancing the door. We test by hand — a properly balanced door should hold its position at any point in the travel without the opener engaged. Then we run the opener through three full cycles and check force settings.
Why Both Springs Should Be Replaced Together
This is the question we get most often, and the answer is straightforward. Springs are matched pairs. They were installed at the same time, they’ve cycled the same number of times, and they’re the same age. If one has failed, the other is sitting at the same end of its life — in most cases it will fail within months. Replacing both at once costs only slightly more in parts and saves you a second service visit. We tell homeowners this every day because it’s the math, not a sales tactic.
High-Cycle Springs — What They’re Worth
Standard torsion springs are rated for around 10,000 cycles. High-cycle springs are rated for 25,000. Extra-high-cycle springs are rated for 50,000 to 100,000. On a family door that cycles four times a day, the standard spring buys you about seven years; the high-cycle buys you twenty.
For homeowners who plan to stay in the house, or for properties with very high door usage (multi-driver households, work-from-home with deliveries, home gyms with door-open ventilation), high-cycle springs are usually the smart upgrade. We carry them in stock and quote them as an option on every spring service.
Brands We Service
We service garage doors from Clopay, Wayne Dalton, Amarr, Northwest Door, and CHI — the five residential brands that account for the overwhelming majority of LA-area installations. Each manufacturer has its own preferred spring sizing chart, and we keep all five reference sets in the truck so we’re not guessing on dimensions.
On the opener side we work with LiftMaster, Genie, and Chamberlain. If your opener has been laboring against a tired spring, we’ll usually find it during the spring inspection — and we can replace or upgrade the opener at the same time. See also our work on garage door opener service.
Service Area and Estimates
Garage door spring service across the Greater Los Angeles area — Beverly Hills, Encino, Sherman Oaks, Westwood, Brentwood, Hancock Park, and the rest of the metro. We’re family-owned, here since 2010, CSLB #1079396, M insured. Verify our license on the CSLB site.
Spring estimates are written and carry no obligation. Call (888) 261-9976 any time — we schedule as early as crews allow, and we’re upfront about availability when we can’t.