Monday, June 4, 2012

What Garage Door Springs Do


Garage door springs are essential parts of the door's opening and closing. They are also important for keeping the door in the raised position until you decide to close it. If they fail, you will definitely want to have new springs installed.

Santa Clarita garage door springs come in two main varieties: torsion and extension. Torsion springs go with sectional roll-aways while extension springs are for swing-up doors. When either type is working properly, they help tremendously with the task of opening the door. A person will only have to move a foot or two before the springs start to do most of the lifting.

If Santa Clarita garage door springs fail, the door will be hard to lift. Worse yet, it won't want to stay up. If the door is already up when a spring lets go, it can come crashing down while you're still underneath. Since some garage doors can weigh over 400 pounds, this can cause serious injury.

Poor adjustment of Santa Clarita garage door springs can also cause many problems. If you're lucky, maladjustment will simply make the door hard or impossible to lift. The unlucky result of improper adjustment is a door that is so eager to open that it flies up out of your hands. Injury can result from such a sudden jerk.

Repairing or replacing garage door springs can be dangerous for those who don't have the proper tools or experience. This is because extended springs are under high tension. If the spring slips its moorings, it will return to its compact phase with great force. This can break an arm or cause other serious injury. Since springs can snap to their small state in unpredictable ways, avoiding this injury is harder than it would seem.

Getting the new springs into position is also hazardous. Without the proper tools, it's also extremely frustrating. This is because it takes a huge amount of force to stretch a tension spring far enough to connect it to its brackets. If your arm strength gives out too soon or you misjudge the distance, it snaps back into its compact state with high power.

For this reason, spring replacement should always be done by a professional. Garage door repair services have the experience and tools needed to complete the job safely. Along with this benefit, hiring a professional service means the job will be done promptly and correctly. Best of all, the work will be under warranty.