What’s Happening

A loud bang from a garage door almost always means a torsion spring has snapped. That single break releases years of stored tension in a fraction of a second, and the sound travels through the door’s metal frame like a gunshot. Stop using the door immediately.

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The spring system is what does the heavy lifting every time the door moves. It counterbalances a door that can weigh anywhere from 150 to 400 pounds, depending on material and size. When a torsion spring reaches the end of its cycle life, it doesn’t fade out gradually – it lets go all at once. The bang is that release. A broken spring means your opener motor is now being asked to move a door it was never designed to lift unassisted, and that stresses the motor, the cables, and the bottom bracket in ways that create the next repair if you keep running it.

Why It Happens

Broken Torsion Spring (Most Likely)

Torsion springs sit on the horizontal steel rod above the door opening. Each spring has a finite number of cycles built into it – typically 10,000 cycles on a standard spring, more on upgraded units. When yours breaks, you’ll hear the bang and then notice the door either won’t move at all or rises a few inches and stops. Look at the spring on the bar above the door: a broken one will have a visible gap in the coil, usually near the center or at the end where it seats.

This is a high-tension component. Do not attempt to remove, rewind, or touch a torsion spring yourself. The stored energy in a wound spring can cause severe injury. Photograph it from a safe distance and call a technician.

Extension Spring Snap (Doors with Side-Mounted Springs)

Some doors, particularly older ones, use extension springs that run parallel to the horizontal tracks on each side of the door. When one of these snaps, the bang sounds similar to a torsion failure but often comes from the side rather than the center. You’ll likely see a broken spring stretched or hanging loose along the track. Like torsion springs, extension springs are under serious tension and should not be handled by anyone without the right tools and training.

Cable Snap or Cable Jump

Cables wrap around drums at each end of the spring bar and carry the door’s weight through the lift cycle. A frayed cable that finally severs creates a sharp bang and may leave one side of the door lower than the other – the door will hang crooked or bind in the tracks. You can sometimes see a pile of cable coiled at the bottom corner of the door, or a cable hanging free near the drum. Again, do not try to rethread or wind the cable yourself: cables are under spring tension and reattaching them requires releasing and resetting that tension correctly.

Something Hit the Door or the Door Hit the Stop

Not every loud bang is a spring. If a vehicle backed into the door, or if the door ran past its travel limit and slammed the stop bolt hard, the bang comes from impact rather than a break. In this case, the door may still operate but the panels might be visibly dented or the track bent. Check the limit settings on the opener and look for physical damage to the panels and track. Even if the door still moves, bent track or a misaligned panel will cause binding over time.

What to Do Right Now

• Stop using the door. Do not run the opener again until someone has looked at it. A broken spring means the opener is pulling dead weight, and repeated attempts will burn out the motor or cause the door to drop suddenly.
• Disconnect the opener from the door if you need manual access – carefully. Pull the red emergency release cord to disengage the trolley. If the door is in the down position and the spring is broken, the door is heavy and will not stay up on its own without someone physically holding it. Do not attempt to manually raise a door with a broken spring unless you have another person helping and a locking mechanism to secure it open.
• Photograph what you can see from a safe distance. A photo of the spring (gap in the coil), the cable (loose or piled at the corner), or the track (bent or out of alignment) helps the technician arrive with the right parts. At Servo, this is exactly how every job starts: evidence first, quote second.
• Do not touch the spring, cable drums, or winding bars. These components store or carry tension even when the door is not moving. This is the one instruction on this page that matters most.
• Check whether the door will need to stay closed or open until the technician arrives, and plan accordingly. If a vehicle is trapped inside, note that for the dispatcher when you call – your local Servo Garage Doors team can prioritize accordingly.

Before

After

How We Fix It

When your local Servo Garage Doors technician arrives, the first thing they do is confirm which component failed. On a torsion spring break, they’ll measure the door’s weight, height, and spring dimensions to select the correct replacement – spring size is not guesswork, it’s math. The old spring is removed, the new spring wound to the correct tension, and the cables checked for wear while the system is open. On an extension spring job, both springs are typically replaced at the same time: when one goes, the other is usually close behind.

The technician will photograph the failed component before quoting anything – that’s Clause 4 of The Haven Standard, and it’s how Servo has worked since 2015. You’ll receive a flat written price and written scope before any work starts. No surprises when the invoice comes, because there is no invoice that differs from the quote. Most torsion spring replacements are completed in under two hours. The job is covered by the 365-Day Done Right Promise: if it’s not right, we make it right. This falls under our Garage Door Repair service, and if the opener sustained damage from running against a broken spring, our Garage Door Opener Repair team handles that in the same visit.

Frequently Asked Questions

Get It Fixed

Call (970) 536-1724 right now – a live person answers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Your local Servo Garage Doors team will confirm the cause, give you a flat written price before touching anything, and get the door working safely. You can also book online if the situation isn’t an emergency.

Written by Marcus Deller, Owner at Servo Garage Doors, serving communities nationwide since 2015.