How to replace garage door springs: extension springs yourself, torsion springs with a pro

Which garage door springs do you have: torsion or extension?

Stand inside the garage with the door closed and look up. If you see one or two large coils on a steel shaft running across the header above the door, with cable drums at each end, those are torsion springs. They lift the door by twisting. If instead you see long springs running parallel to the horizontal tracks near the ceiling, one on each side, attached to a pulley with a cable running to the bottom corner of the door, those are extension springs. They lift by stretching.

The difference matters for one reason: where the energy is when you touch the part. An extension spring is loaded when the door is closed and nearly relaxed when the door is fully open, so Clopay's instructions have you open the door, clamp it, and only then unhook anything. A torsion spring is wound tight when the door is closed and never gets close to zero without someone unwinding it by hand, a quarter turn at a time, holding a steel bar against the full torque. That is why the two jobs get different answers on this page.

What size garage door spring do you need?

The size is on the old spring: wire size, inside diameter, length and wind direction for a torsion spring, door height and door weight for an extension spring. Measure the old spring first and buy second. DASMA's technical sheet on spring life lists "applying a spring to the wrong door" as the first installation error, with consequences that range from a short life to a door that will not stay put when you lift it by hand.

Torsion springs: four numbers

Wire size decides how strong the spring is, and it is the number people get wrong with calipers, because rust and paint change the reading. The reliable method, from DDM Garage Doors' measuring guide: press the coils together and measure 20 of them with a tape, then divide by 20. The arithmetic for three common sizes:

Inside diameter is usually stamped on the winding cone; residential springs are commonly 1-3/4 or 2 inches. Length is measured on the coils only, from the first coil to the last, with the spring unwound. Wind direction: seen from inside the garage, the spring on the left side of the center bracket is right wound and the one on the right is left wound. Clopay color codes the winding cones for this, red for the left side and black for the right. Menards sells one spring in 31 wire-by-length combinations, which tells you how easy it is to buy the wrong one.

Extension springs: door height and door weight

Extension springs are sold by door height and by the weight they are rated to lift, and they work in pairs: DASMA's color chart notes that two springs are required for the door weight printed on them. A green end means 120 lb, tan means 100 lb, blue means 140 lb. DASMA's caution is plain: the color is partial identification and should be confirmed by measurement and the door maker's data, "particularly on older installations." If the door was painted or had a window kit added, it may now weigh more than the original springs were chosen for.

How long do garage door springs last?

A standard torsion spring is rated for 10,000 cycles, about 6.8 years at 4 cycles a day, and high-cycle springs rated for 54,000 cycles last about 37 years at the same use. A cycle is one open and one close, and high-cycle springs are also sold at 27,000 cycles. How long that lasts depends entirely on how you use the door. For a house where the garage is the main entry, I use 4 cycles a day, or 1,460 a year:

The installed column adds $270 of labor and overhead to each pair: This Old House's low torsion price of $350 minus its $80 low parts figure. The parts barely move the result. What moves it is how often you pay for the visit. The 54,000-cycle pair costs $55.82 more than the standard pair and it lasts as long as 5.4 standard pairs, which at 4 cycles a day saves about four service calls over 37 years. If a spring on your door failed in under five years, ask for high-cycle springs on the next job. One practical limit: DDM notes that high-cycle springs use heavier wire and are longer, so check that the shaft has room for them.

Is it safe to replace torsion springs yourself?

I would not tell a first-timer to replace torsion springs, and neither does the industry. DASMA's color code sheet says in its first paragraph that it should not be used by homeowners to replace springs, and that replacement "should only be performed by a trained door systems technician." Clopay, which does publish torsion instructions, opens them with a warning: do not try this unless you have the right tools and reasonable mechanical aptitude or experience, and follow the instructions very carefully.

The details of those instructions explain the warning. You wind with two solid steel bars, 1/2 inch by 18 inches in Clopay's spec, inserted to the full depth of the winding cone holes, a quarter turn at a time, standing to the side. A screwdriver in place of a bar is named as a cause of severe injury. The center bracket that holds the reaction torque has red-headed lag screws that must never be touched once the spring is wound. DASMA lists winding backwards and applying the wrong number of turns as safety issues for the installer. Each of those is a single mistake, made with your face near a bar under load.

Now the money. Two torsion springs at Menards cost $139.98, plus $14.99 for a pair of 16-inch winding bars (Clopay specifies 18 inches), so $154.97. This Old House puts the installed job at $350 to $540. The whole prize for doing it yourself is $195 to $385, once. Hire it out. Get the spring numbers from the old springs yourself (the measuring above is safe; touching the set screws is not), ask for a quote with the wire size, length and cycle rating written on it, and compare two companies.

How to replace garage door extension springs, step by step

The case: a single-car sectional door, 8 or 9 ft wide by 7 ft high, about 120 lb, with two extension springs and no containment cables, or old ones. The procedure follows Clopay's extension spring supplement. If your door maker publishes its own instructions, those win.

Know where this page departs from the industry. DASMA's advice covers extension springs too: its sheet says replacement of springs on garage doors should only be done by a trained door systems technician, and Clopay's service guide says the same. This page treats extension springs as DIY because the energy is nearly gone with the door open and clamped, and Clopay publishes the procedure with containment cables. If you cannot follow every step below exactly, including the clamps and the cables, hire the job out at the $300 to $400 This Old House reports.

Materials for the declared case

Tools

Indispensable: two C-clamps or locking pliers for the tracks, a sturdy stepladder, safety glasses, gloves, a socket set and wrenches for the 3/8-inch and 5/16-inch hardware, and a second person to lift. Nice to have: a second ladder so both sides can be worked at once. Nothing on this job needs to be rented.

The steps

1. Unplug the opener and disconnect it from the door with the release cord, with the door closed. Check: the door moves on the tracks by hand and the opener has no power.
2. Raise the door fully open, with help. With a broken spring the door will be heavy on one side. Clopay's warning is to use two or more people and go slowly. Check: rollers at the back of the horizontal track, door level side to side.
3. Clamp both tracks just below the bottom rollers so the door cannot come down. Check: push down on the bottom edge; the door does not move.
4. Read the old springs before removing them: color on the ends, length, and which eyebolt hole and which hole on the track angle the hooks use. Take a photo. Check: you know the rating and the hook positions for both sides.
5. Unhook the old springs from the rear hanger eyebolts and remove the pulley (sheave) and its fork from each spring. With the door open they are close to relaxed. Check: each spring comes off by hand without a pry bar. If one fights you, stop: the door is not fully open.
6. Assemble the new springs with the sheaves on the floor, using the 3/8 x 1-1/4-inch sheave bolt. Check: each sheave spins freely.
7. Hook the new springs over the rear eyebolts, route each lift cable from the bottom bracket up over the stationary pulley and around the spring's pulley, and tie it to the three-hole adjusting clip, then hook the clip to the track angle with the S-hook. Check: both springs stretched the same amount, cable seated in the pulley grooves, and no broken strands anywhere on the cable. A frayed cable means stop here and call a technician; Clopay's service guide treats cable work as pro work.
8. Install the containment cables. Tie one end of the 1/8-inch cable to the rear track hanger, thread it through the center of the spring and through the bushing on the sheave fork, and tie the other end to the horizontal track angle. Clopay's words: extension spring doors must never be operated without it. Check: the cable runs through the whole spring and is tight at both ends.
9. Remove the clamps and test by hand. Lower the door slowly, then lift it to about halfway and let go. Check: it stays put or drifts slowly. If it drops, the springs are weak for the door; if it rises, too strong.
10. Adjust only with the door open and clamped again. Moving the S-hooks toward the door opening, or the eyebolts higher on the hanger, increases tension. Adjust both sides the same. Check: the balance test in step 9 passes, and the door closes level.
11. Reconnect and test the opener, including the auto-reverse, per the opener's manual. Check: full open and close with no strain or noise from the opener.

Garage door spring mistakes that cost money

Every figure below is either a Menards price from September 19, 2026, or This Old House's installed range.

Is it worth replacing garage door springs yourself?

For extension springs, yes: you keep $262 to $362. For torsion springs, no: $195 to $385 saved, once, does not pay for the risk. Mechanical door repairers earned a median $26.79 an hour in May 2025, according to BLS. Wages are 69.5% of total compensation in private construction, so the loaded hour costs a company about $38.55. A two-hour visit is $77.09 of labor. The rest of a $300 to $400 extension spring job is parts ($20 to $60 by This Old House's count), the truck, insurance, the dispatcher and profit.

For extension springs, $262 over a three-hour afternoon (my estimate of the time) is about $87 an hour of after-tax money, and the risk is managed by the clamps and the safety cables. Do it. For torsion springs the number looks similar and the risk is of another order: the expensive outcome there is an injury. Pay the technician, and use the cycle table above to decide whether to pay a little more for springs rated 2.7 to 5.4 times as many cycles.

If spring work is part of a bigger project budget, the contractor pricing guide shows how to read the markup in a quote.