What does a broken counterbalance spring do to a garage door?
The counterbalance spring on my garage door snapped. It's still on the axle, but presumably not working. Manually, we can't open the door. Does this put added strain on my garage door opener, making it harder to open? Also, in the very cold I have to push the remote 3-5x before the door opens all the way, my neighbors don't seem to have this problem. Could it be related to the spring?
Expert
Maestro
A broken counterbalance spring adds a significant strain to your garage door opener. If you can't open the door manually, you risk damaging your garage door opener by asking it to do that much work. As you can see in the attached articles, a garage door should be perfectly balanced, and should be very little work to open and close. With respect to your comments about pushing the remote control, we have the following thoughts. If you have to push the button three to five times before anything happens at all, it simply means that the battery is weak -- a condition which is aggravated by cold weather. If that garage door stops and starts three to five times in order to get the door fully open or fully closed, it means the door is offering so much resistance, that the safety (sensitivity) switch is shutting off the motor, because the opener thinks that garage door is jamming against something, when in fact that garage door is really very heavy, because of the broken spring. You need to bring in a professional to replace the spring and adjust the sensitivity of your opener.
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