Burbank, Kennewick
Burbank homes built around 1981 often carry single torsion springs sized for lighter doors. We bring the right spring stock out from Kennewick, nine miles away.
Watch-outs
The fault we see most in Burbank starts with the door, not the spring. A lot of this area went up around 1981, and builders at that time typically hung a single torsion spring rated for the lighter steel sectional doors sold then.
Decades later, a lot of those original doors have been swapped for heavier insulated panels, but the spring never got upgraded to match. The result is a spring working harder than it was ever sized for, cycle after cycle, until it gives out early.
Even where the original door is still in place, a spring built in 1981 has had forty-plus years to fatigue. Torsion springs are rated in cycles, not years, but age plus cold-weather stiffening in this part of the state takes a toll on steel that's already near the end of its working life.
We're not guessing at a generic failure point here - we're looking at hardware from a specific, narrow build window, and it behaves differently than springs from a newer subdivision would.
The repair
Before any spring goes on the shaft, we measure three things: wire diameter, coil length, and inside diameter. Get any of those wrong and the door either slams up too fast or won't lift at all.
On a 1981-built door we're often working with an undersized single spring, so part of the job is deciding whether to match the original spec or step up to a pair sized for the door's actual current weight - especially if the panels were replaced at some point and nobody adjusted the spring to match.
Winding the new spring to the correct number of quarter-turns matters as much as picking the right size. Too few turns and the door feels heavy at the bottom; too many and the opener strains against a door that wants to fly open.
We set tension by hand with winding bars, not by eye, and we check the balance by running the door through a full cycle before we call it done. The short version: it's a measuring job first, a wrenching job second.
On the truck
Because so much of Burbank's housing dates to the early 1980s, we carry spring stock sized for that era - both the original single-spring setups and the dual-spring upgrades that fit doors heavier than what the house was originally built with. We also carry the winding bars, cones, and bearing plates that pair with those springs, since swapping a spring on forty-year-old hardware often means the cones or bearings are worn too.
We don't carry every spring size ever made - nobody's truck does. What we stock is weighted toward what actually shows up on the doors out here, which is why we check the door's build era and weight before we load up for the drive.
DIY or pro
A torsion spring under full wind holds enough stored force to break a finger or worse, and the winding bars needed to safely load and unload that tension aren't something most garages have lying around.
We'll say plainly: this isn't a repair we'd talk a homeowner through over the phone, and we don't recommend attempting it without the right bars and a second set of hands.
Where DIY does make sense is the easy stuff next to the spring - lubricating hinges, tightening loose brackets, clearing track debris. Just leave the spring itself, and the cable that runs over it, to a service call.
Warning signs
The classic sign is a door that stops a few inches off the ground and won't budge, with the opener motor straining or clicking as it tries to pull weight it can't lift alone. Sometimes it's quieter than that - a door that feels noticeably heavier to lift by hand than it did a year ago, which usually means the spring is losing tension gradually rather than snapping outright.
A loud bang from the garage, especially in cold weather, is often the spring itself letting go. If you hear that, don't run the opener again - a broken spring can let the door drop fast, and running it further risks the cable or the opener's drive gear next.
Booking
We cover Burbank from Kennewick, about nine miles up the road, and we bring spring stock sized for this area's 1981-era doors rather than a generic assortment. Call us with the door's rough age and whether it's a single or double door, and we'll bring the right spring size the first trip instead of guessing on site.
For general repair work beyond springs - openers, tracks, panels - see our Burbank garage door repair page. If you're in Kennewick itself rather than Burbank, our Kennewick spring repair page covers that area's own housing stock and pricing.
Questions
Houses from 1981 often shipped with a single torsion spring sized for the lighter steel doors of that era. If the door's been replaced with a heavier insulated panel since, the original spring is working past what it was built for, which shortens its life considerably.
We cover Burbank from our base in Kennewick, about nine miles away. Bring us the door's age and whether it's single or double, and we'll bring matched spring stock out with us.
You can, but it's not ideal. Springs age together, and a mismatched new-and-old pair tends to wear unevenly, putting the newer spring under more strain. Most of the time we recommend replacing both at once on a double door.
Rarely for a spring alone - that's usually the cheaper fix. But if the door itself is original from the early '80s and showing other wear, like warped panels or a tired opener, it can make sense to deal with both at once rather than sinking repair cost into an aging door.
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Kennewick Garage Door Pros repairs and installs garage doors, springs and openers in Kennewick, WA and the surrounding area.
