Broken garage door spring or cable: what to do and what it costs

If someone is hurt or trapped, call 911.

Since 1993 every home garage door opener made for sale in the US has had to come with a warning label for the wall beside its button. It says that if someone is trapped under the door, push the button or use the emergency release, or just push the button on an opener without a release.¹

The safety instructions in every opener's manual say to keep a moving door in sight and away from people and objects until it's completely closed, and never to go under a stopped, partially open door.¹ A severely unbalanced door could crash to the floor without warning and hit someone under it, the Consumer Product Safety Commission says, and a door that isn't balanced, or that binds or sticks, should be serviced by a professional.² So keep people and cars out from under the door until it's repaired.

The safety instructions every opener's manual carries say an improperly balanced door could cause severe injury or death, and to have a qualified service person repair the cables, spring assemblies and other hardware.¹ That's the work to leave to a garage door company: don't adjust, unhook or replace a spring or cable yourself.

Don't try to lift the door or run it with the opener. The opener's safety instructions warn that weak or broken springs may let the door fall fast.¹

Be careful with the emergency release. It detaches the door from the opener.² The opener's safety instructions say to use it, if possible, only when the door is closed, and to take care using it with the door open, because weak or broken springs may let the door fall fast.¹ The installer is told to show you how to use the manual release, and except on some openers that aren't attached directly to the door, a marking on or beside the release has to show how to detach the door.¹ Follow that marking and the opener's manual.

If the car's inside, leave it there until the door's been made safe. Driving out means passing under the door, and a badly unbalanced door could crash to the floor without warning.² Tell the company when you call that you need the car out, so it can tell you when it can come.

If the door is off its track or a cable has snapped, leave it where it is. The CPSC says to check a door's hardware and fittings to keep it on track at all times,² and cables are among the parts the opener's instructions leave to a qualified service person.¹

The figures here are published national ranges from cost guides. They aren't quotes. Each one is a range at least two independent cost guides agree on, and a site that repeats another's figures counts once. Every repair price we give is in what garage door repair costs.

Fixr describes the two kinds of spring: torsion springs mount horizontally over the door opening and coil or uncoil as the door moves, and extension springs stretch and compress as it opens and closes. It says the springs are virtually always replaced as a pair, so they age at the same rate and keep the tension even.⁴

Putting a door back on its track can mean more than the track. Thumbtack says the company takes the door down, checks whether the cables or rollers are off, resets the rollers, cables and drums, and unwinds and rewinds the springs as needed.¹⁰

An emergency repair tends to cost more in the evening, at the weekend or on a holiday, and Thumbtack says to expect an extra fee for an emergency or short notice repair.¹⁰ Fixr notes that needing the car out for work or school can make it an emergency repair even when nothing else is urgent.⁴

• One spring against two. Only one source without a stated method prices them separately. The cost guides above price the pair.
• Springs on a double door or on two doors. The sources price different things, so the figures can't be compared.
• An after-hours or emergency charge. The cost guides say it costs more, but we don't publish a figure for it.

• What the service call costs, whether it comes off the repair, and whether the company charges a flat price or by the hour. Fixr suggests asking how the company prices the work, and says it should give an estimate.⁴
• The full price, parts and labor, before the work starts, and whether both springs, or both cables, are in it.
• Whether they'll check that the door's balanced, so it stays put when stopped partway,² and test the opener's reverse before they leave. What a garage door opener costs has the reverse test.
• Whether the company's licensed or registered where your state asks for it. How to check a garage door company has each state's rule.

Read anything you're asked to sign at the door. If you agree to a sale of $25 or more at your home, the Federal Trade Commission's Cooling-Off Rule usually gives you until midnight of the third business day to cancel. It doesn't cover a repair visit you asked for, though if the company sells you goods or services on that visit beyond the replacement parts the repair uses, the repair exception doesn't cover that extra sale. It also doesn't cover a real emergency where you made the contact and give up the right in a separate, dated and signed statement in your own handwriting.¹¹

Each company on this site is listed with its phone number where it has one, so you can call two or three and compare. You can also send a request through the request form.