Jammed garage door

[MikeB]

Hi guys, I hope someone here can help me out. We're in a bit of a jam!

Our garage door is jammed. No amount of force seems to be able to move it. I have been able to lift it about 18 inches using our two car jacks, but no further.

I have disconnected the electrical opener, so it is not working against that.

At the top of to door openeing, on the wall is a horizontal bar with two coil springs. At the end of the bar are two pulleys with cable that go to the bottom of the door. I think this is a counter-weighting mechanism to enable easy lifting of the door. The right-hand spring seems broken. The cable on the right is slack, the cable on the left is very tight.

The door is jammed solid, I cannot move it up or down by more than an inch or so. I checked the rollers on the sides and they do not seem jammed. Any ideas on how I can free up to doors? We need our cars!

Thanks!

[dpb]

MikeB wrote: ...

... When the torsion spring broke, it apparently jammed somewhere. You'll have to find where that is and release it. Be careful to not get caught anywhere there's still tension/compression in the spring, obviously.

--

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, One spring being broken, one spring torsion can't lift the door which weighs couple hundred pounds. Try to find the jam, and try to lift the door giving more push on the broken spring side. Then leave the door open and call for the service. Make sure cable is not tangled and rollers are all on track(not jumped out). At least you should be able to open it with one spring working. I once replaced a broken spring myself not easy but can be done being very careful for the safety. Took me a whole day including the trip to hardware store for parts.

[jeff_wisnia]

I doubt that's the reason, the door should be able to be move up with one or both cables slacked.

The OP didn't describe the size or material of the door, but it's likely just too heavy for him to lift by himself. He should get a few strong friends and give it a try.

My single width garage door exerted a downforce of about 250 pounds when almost closed and resting a scale with both cables disconnected. I probably could have lifted it by myself but didn't want to risk a hernia. (I made that weight measurement to determine what strength expansion springs to buy when one of them bust. No color coding on the original springs.)

[MikeB]

I always forget to mention something crucial to my problem, don't I? :)

It is a double-sided garage door made of wood with foru windows along the top. The door is quite old, if it is as old as the house, it is upwards of 25 years old. We were actually thinking of replacing it, since it is starting to rot through at the bottom.

I checked and the rollers seem free in their tracks and the cables don't seem jammed anywhere.

If the door weighs 250 lbs, then that would explain why I can't open it. My one neighbor recently moved out and the other one is disabled, so I can't count on them. I've found a guy on CraisgsList that said the'd come out for $99. Hope he's good.

[MikeB]

I just don't seem to see a jam. But there probably is one, since even our car jacks have difficulty lifting the door and a car jack can lift more than a couple of 100 lbs. Will have to wait for this service guy to see what's up. This couldn't have happened at a worse time. We just got a call that our daughter's Girl Scout troop was returning earlier than expected from camp, both our cars are in the garage, it's a Sunday and my wife wanted to go to churc and tomorrow we have to get my daughter to school and we have to get to work. Murphy's law at its best.

[Tony Hwang]

Yes, Murphy's law. Luckily our trailer tow truck is always parked in the back yard car port. Good luck.

[Oren]

I seldom pull the emergency release rope to open my double door by hand. One day I did and noticed it did not disengage when I thought it did. Another pull made certain.

[aemeijers]

BTDT, very recently. Luckily, it happened as I closed the door leaving for work, and had 1 untrapped car. (Boy did I cuss when I got home that night, and all the opener did was make one end of door go up a couple of inches. WTF?) Fix was an emergency service call to local overhead door vendor. Within 24 hours, they did a temporary repair with a cable clamp reconnecting the broken ends of the spring, for about 20 bucks. I went ahead and had both springs replaced, for about $275, but I had to wait a week for an opening in their schedule, to get that done. If you call and say 'trapped cars', that bumps you to the top of the list for the temporary repair, at least for the people I used.

You theoretically could undo the spring on the other side and open the door, but I would advise against it. It is likely to make the eventual repair cost even more, and those are greasy nasty parts that will bite you. And without the counterweighting, those doors are heavy. Cabs, kind neighbors/coworkers/using up a couple vacation days till the repair guy can get there, are the painless solution.

-- aem sends...

[HeyBub]

If you need your cars and the door's a goner anyway, it's time for a sledge hammer.

[Oren]

I thought the same thing.

Me: "I'm calling in."

Boss: "Are you sick?"

Me: "No, I'm going fishing!"

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, Sure the opener is disengaged? If it is, when you operate opener it'll free run.

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, Just measuring the size of spring can tell approx weight of door. (wire gauge of spring, no. of turns, diameter) Some times it is color coded.

[Mark]

I always forget to mention something crucial to my problem, don't I? :)

It is a double-sided garage door made of wood with foru windows along the top. The door is quite old, if it is as old as the house, it is upwards of 25 years old. We were actually thinking of replacing it, since it is starting to rot through at the bottom.

I checked and the rollers seem free in their tracks and the cables don't seem jammed anywhere.

If the door weighs 250 lbs, then that would explain why I can't open it. My one neighbor recently moved out and the other one is disabled, so I can't count on them. I've found a guy on CraisgsList that said the'd come out for $99. Hope he's good.

Make sure the tension cable on the side where the spring seems to have broken isn't catching on something. If you can lift it an inch or so and then it stops solid, it isn't a case of it just being too heavy. Something is catching and jamming. It could also be that it isn't lifting straight and is binding up as you lift it and it tilts to one side or the other.

[Malcolm Hoar]

Don't spend a dollar on repairs in that case. Just replace the doors. Wooden doors suck anyway, IMO. They're heavy, they rot, they sag and they break. Definitely replace the tracks too although you can probably re-use the existing opener if it's in good condition.

Replacing our wooden garage doors with some good quality insulated metal doors was the best thing we've done on our 20 year old home. It didn't cost an arm or a leg either.

Around here at least, the smaller independent garage door contractors will do the job better and quicker than Home Depot et al. Just be sure to check references etc. because there are some cowboys in that game.

[MikeB]

OK, so as I said, I got this 24/7 guy from CL to come out. He told me up front that he did not have the right spring and that I would have to wait until Monday afternoon if he had to get a spring. Anyway, since I was going to replace the doors, I told him to just come on over and open the door and we can talk about replacing the doors.

About an hour later he came on over and between the two of us we lifted the door up and moved it until the automatic opener engaged to hold it in the open position. Fastest $100 I've ever spent (and probably for the least effort from another person - oh well.

He quoted me about $1,600 to replace both the 16' and 9' side garage doors with 24 gauge steel doors. Since that was a lot cheaper than the original quote from the other guys, I thought I'd take a flyer and go with this one. The electric opener is quite new and he said it could be reused.

He looked a little on the cowboy side, just a guy in a truck and he asked if I could pay in cash, but I figured WTH. Take a chance sometime. I'll wait and see - he said he'd be back Friday to replace the doors. I got his DL#, his truck's registration and a business card (with no business address). I'm kinda wondering how this will work out. However, he has a US Marines sticker on his truck and he says his brother is in Pendleton and going to Afghanistan in January. So I'm gonna give him a bit of a break. If he screws up I'll just get the other guys back in - how bad can you screw up garage doors?

[Malcolm Hoar]

Yeah, but it really sucks having your cars stuck in the garage!

Sounds like a decent price.

He might turn out to be excellent. Good luck, anyway!

Some things to check for off the top of my head:

1. Do the new doors appear to be properly aligned in the frame?
2. Are the tracks *securely* attached to studs or whatever?
3. With the opener disengaged, are the springs balancing the weight of the doors nicely?
4. Does the opener function smoothly, quietly and without jerking?

If those items are okay, it's probably a sound installation.

[aemeijers]

A row of red flags like that, and you keep on trucking? No address, and I bet the phone number was a cell. There are a dozen different ways I can think of to screw up a garage door install, and I'm no expert. And with a fly-by-night off-the-books installer like that, forget about any warranty claims. Is a contractor license required in your state? If he screws up during the install and gets hurt, does he have insurance to cover it? What are you gonna do if halfway during the install, he suddenly says it is going to cost a lot more?

IMHO, better to pay a real installer up front, and be done with it. But if you have your heart set on going with him, I'd insist on riding along when he goes to pick up the door- don't just give him a fistful of cash. Pretty certain he doesn't have a line of credit at the supply house, so he'll probably want material costs up front. Are the doors double-layer and insulated, or single skin bare metal? What finish is on the steel? The price he quoted doesn't sound much lower than Google ballpark prices, but I don't know how costs run in your area.

-- aem sends...

[Stormin Mormon]

I'd call a garage company. Those springs have a terrifying ammount of energy. I'd sure not want to cut one of those loose. In some departments, I'm a quivvering coward, and this is one such.

[Stormin Mormon]

I'm with you. I'd sure not want a one man operation, like that. Too many ways to screw up. Garage door should last much of the life of the house. Not something to leave to fly by nights.