Garage Door Spring Snapped? What to Do in the Next Hour
Updated 2026-10 · Myrtle Beach, SC
Confirm it is the spring
A spring breaking sounds like a gunshot or a heavy object dropped in the garage, often when nobody was using the door. Afterwards the opener may run and stop after a few inches, or the motor runs while the door stays closed. Look up at the shaft above the door. A broken torsion spring shows a clean gap in the coils, usually a couple of inches wide. On older doors with springs along the side tracks, one spring will be hanging loose or visibly stretched apart.
Stop using the opener
The opener is built to guide a balanced door, not to lift its full weight. Pressing the button again and again strips the drive gear, bends the top panel where the opener arm attaches, or pulls the door out of its track. Unplug the opener or pull the red emergency release so nobody in the house presses the button out of habit.
Leave the springs and cables alone
The other spring, if there is one, is still wound and holding tension. The cables and the bottom brackets on each side of the door are under load. Do not loosen set screws, try to unwind anything, or remove the bottom brackets. This is the part of garage door work that injures homeowners, and nothing about the situation gets worse by waiting a day for someone with winding bars.
If you need the car out now
Sometimes you do: a shift starting, a flight to catch, a hurricane evacuation. It can be done carefully.
- Pull the emergency release so the door is free of the opener
- Get a second adult. A double door with a broken spring can weigh 130 to 250 pounds
- Lift from the bottom edge together, keeping fingers out of the panel joints
- Prop it fully open with locking pliers clamped on the track just below the bottom roller on both sides, or with a sturdy prop. Never stand under a door held only by hands
- Close it the same way, slowly, together. Do not let it drop
If there is only one of you, or the door will not move, leave it and call.
What to tell the company when you call
Say that you heard a bang and see a gap in the spring, whether the door is open or closed, whether a car is inside, and roughly how big the door is (single or double, plain steel or insulated). A photo of the spring and the label on the door's edge, if there is one, helps them bring the right springs and quote close to the final number.
Call about the broken spring. It is usually a same or next business day job in Myrtle Beach, and faster if you say a car is trapped.
Why it happened, and how to slow the next one
Springs wear out by cycles, and near the beach rust shortens their life. Most springs that break on the Grand Strand are seven to ten years old and were never lubricated. A light spray of garage-door spring lubricant along the coils twice a year, plus asking for high-cycle springs on the replacement if the garage is the main way in and out of the house, is the practical answer.
Where to go next
Common questions
Is it dangerous to have a broken spring?
The broken spring itself is mostly spent. The danger is the remaining spring and the cables, which still hold tension, and the dead weight of the door if someone lifts it and lets go.
Can I just replace the one spring that broke?
You can ask for that, but on a two-spring door both are the same age and the second usually goes soon after. Most companies recommend both.
The door came down hard when the spring broke. Is anything else damaged?
Possibly the bottom section, the bottom brackets or the cables. Mention it on the call so they look at those parts too.