What are garage door springs?

Garage door springs are large wire coils that help to lift and lower garage doors. With properly installed and adjusted garage door springs, one only has to get the door started by manually moving it a foot or two up or down, before the springs take over. Automatic garage door openers will get the door started for you, but the springs still do the actual work of lifting and lowering. There are two basic types of garage door springs, torsion springs and extension springs. These are used respectively with the two basic types of garage doors, sectional roll-aways and swing-ups. A roll-away door uses two torsion garage door springs that are located on either side of the top center of the door. Swing-up garage doors use two extension garage door springs, mounted on extending swing-arms on either side of the door. Garage door springs are under tremendous tension when extended and, if failure occurs, can result in a garage door dropping on to a vehicle or person. Unfortunately, most people ...  more