The garage door spring that snapped taught me to stop eyeballing stuff

Last Tuesday at my house near San Mateo and Montgomery, I heard that awful bang and the door just dropped. I figured it was a simple fix, so I grabbed a replacement spring from Big Jim's Hardware without measuring the old one. Turned out the door weighed like 180 pounds with the insulation kit, and my guess was way off. Anyone else learn the hard way that eyeballing home repairs costs more than the $65 measuring tool?

1 comments

Log in to join the discussion

Log In

1 Comment

drew9657d ago

That "awful bang" followed by the door just dropping is a sound you never forget, and I feel for you. Same thing happened to me a few years back and I did the exact same dumb thing, grabbed a spring that looked about right and figured close enough. The door would only open halfway and then hang there like it was mocking me. What got me was that the springs are rated by door weight and height, so being off even a little means it either fights you or it slams. The $65 measuring tool would've saved me a whole weekend and a lot of cussing, no question. You're not the only one who had to learn that lesson the loud way.

5