With the sheer amount of tension in your garage door's springs and cables, it is definitely unwise to attempt repairs on your own. Just one wrong move could cause the springs or cables to violently jump out of position, potentially causing a host of serious injuries. In fact, even professional door technicians have to utilize extreme caution while performing repairs to avoid injuries or even death. Your garage door repair technician will use proper safety gear, inspect components for defects, use specialized tools and triple check hardware torque to stay safe throughout the installation or repair process. Read on to learn more information about how your technician will maintain a safe environment while fixing your broken garage door cable or other damaged components.

Wear Proper Safety Gear

Hard hats, safety goggles and gloves can prevent serious injury if something goes wrong during the repair process. Although garage door technicians take every precaution to prevent injuries, sometimes parts unexpectedly break, causing pieces to shoot across the room at high speed.

Technicians must position their ladders and scissor lifts far out of range of the garage door if it were to fall from the tracks. The weight of the garage door could easily knock the worker off the extension device or cause crushing injuries.

Look For Severe Defects

A quick visual inspection allows technicians to identify bad tension springs and adequately prepare for the repair process. Bad garage door springs often have irregular coil spacing and corroded metal materials.

Technicians also look at the condition of the cable attached to the end pulley to determine if the setup will support the garage door during the repairs. If not, techs can support the garage door with a specially designed beam that locks in place.

Use A Winding Mechanism

Simply disconnecting the cable and pulley at the end of the torsion spring could cause pieces of the assembly to shoot across the room. Technicians must first capture the spring tension in a winding cone and bar before starting the repair process.

Technicians use the size of the tension spring and weight of the garage door to determine the correct winding bar size for the job. Most residential jobs can be completed with an 18-inch bar, while commercial doors often require the 24 to 36 inch bars. The bar selected for the job must fit tightly in the cone's holes to adequately support the tension in the spring during the repairs.

Check Hardware Torque

While reinstalling the garage door spring and cable assembly, it is important to correctly torque down all of the hardware. When nuts and bolts are installed at the wrong torque, they can work themselves loose during regular operation of the door. If the hardware falls out of place, tension in the spring could cause it to launch unexpectedly.

Each piece of hardware has its own recommended torque setting to follow, as indicated by its location, size and material. Furthermore, technicians may need to use a torque sequence while loosening or tightening hardware to secure the parts together properly.

Obtaining Professional Assistance

Upon noticing a problem with your garage door spring or cables, you should contact a repair technician right away for assistance. Allowing the problem to worsen is often just as dangerous as attempting repairs yourself. Furthermore, you may end up unable to access the inside of the garage when the parts fail outright.

Your repair technician will assess the damage, order parts and perform repairs as necessary to resolve the issue. You can take pictures of the repaired components to remind yourself of their proper appearance when in good shape. When your garage door components start to look run down, as compared to the photographs, call your repair tech back to the home for another repair session.