Garage door springs and your safety

Garage door springs - are an important safety issue - important enough to deserve it's own section. Overhead rollup garage door springs are safe once installed, since under any kind of spring breakage, the spring coil is retained by the torsion shaft that the spring rotates. Take a look at one, you'll see for yourself.

Flip-up garage doors are another story. You might have heard horror stories of these types of garage door springs giving way while the garage door is closing. Think about it, a hardened steel coil comes apart sending shrapnel flying at ballistic speeds all over your garage. If you or a family member happens to be in the garage when that happens - it's goner time - not for the safety conscious.

Old flip-up garage door springs can be made vastly safer quite easily for only a few dollars. A 12 foot piece of 1/8 inch cable can be purchased for a few dollars at any hardware store. Include a cable clamp, and you have your fix. Do this for each spring on your flip-up garage door - Thread the cable down the center of the spring, and back forming a loop - apply the cable clamp. With this cable in place, if the spring broke into several sections, all pieces would be contained by the cable.

Make certain before you do this, that your cable is long enough to provide the needed security. Move the flip-up garage door into the closed position. This extends the springs to their most stretched out position, and gives a good idea exactly how much cable you will need.

On a dual spring (two springs on each side of the door) you can run the cable down the center of one spring, and up the center of the other. So if fully stretched to 5 feet, you would need about 12 to 14 feet of cable for one side, 24 to 28 feet in total - which includes enough extra cable to accommodate a cable clamp at the ends.

With the safety cable run down the center one spring, loop around, and run up the center of the other spring, clamp the two ends of the cable together. Repeat the process on the other side of the garage door, and in just a few moments you've made your garage far safer from the risk of ballistic spring fragments.

Better still, just replace old springs. New springs have a core rod that will retain a spring in the event that it explodes. Consider calling a professional to do this. He can evaluate the overall security provided by your garage door, and offer other options too.

A simple length of cable and some clamps can provide a great deal of protection for only a few dollars. Better still, replace old garage door springs with new ones that meet local code specifications. You and your family will be safer and more secure.

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