How long do garage door springs last?

By Heather Window & Door · 11 September 2026

A cycle, not a calendar

One cycle is the door going up and coming back down. The spring stores energy on the way down and gives it back on the way up, and every one of those cycles takes a little out of the steel.

So the honest answer to how long a spring lasts is: as long as its cycle specification, divided by how often you use the door. A family that comes and goes through the garage four or five times a day gets through the same specification far faster than a household that uses the front door.

Springs also come in different specifications for the same door. A heavier-duty spring costs more up front and buys more cycles, which is the whole subject of the high-cycle guide.

What actually shortens a spring’s life

• How often the door is usedThe dominant factor by a wide margin. Everything else is a detail next to it.
• Whether the door is balancedA door dragging on a worn roller or a tight track makes the spring work harder on every cycle.
• Whether it was specified for the doorA spring wound for a lighter door than yours is working outside its design from the first day.
• RustA damp garage takes the life out of steel. Coated springs resist it better.
• A missing pairOn a two-spring door running with one, the surviving spring is doing a job it was never sized for.
• An opener compensatingTurning the force up so the opener pushes through a heavy door hides the problem and passes the strain along.

The warning signs, in the order you notice them

Springs do sometimes fail without notice — a bang, and a door that will not lift. Often, though, the door says something first.

• The door feels heavier than it used to, or the opener sounds like it is straining.
• It opens a few inches, stops, and goes back down.
• It comes down faster than it used to, or lands hard.
• It will not stay where you leave it when the opener is disconnected — though testing that is our job, not yours.
• You can see a gap in the coil on the shaft above the door.
• The cables have gone slack, or one side sits lower than the other.

A bang from the garage with nobody near it is the classic version. If that has happened, stop using the opener and do not try to lift the door by hand — the weight the spring was carrying is now yours.

Why both springs are replaced together

On a door with two springs, both have done the same number of cycles at the same specification. When one lets go, the other is not a fresh part that happens to be next to a broken one — it is the same age, with the same history.

Replacing one means paying for the visit twice, and running a mismatched pair in the meantime. That is why the estimate on a two-spring door normally names the pair, and why it says so plainly rather than surprising you with it later.

Wayne Dalton doors are the exception worth knowing about: their own counterbalance runs the springs inside a steel tube above the door rather than on an open shaft, with a device meant to stop the door dropping if a spring goes while it is up. It looks different from inside the garage, and it is documented on the maker’s own site.

What we do on a spring visit

We weigh the door rather than guess it, because the spring specification follows the real weight. Then the pair goes on, the cables and drums are checked, and the door is balanced and tested — auto-reverse, photo-eyes, springs and cables, balance, the four things on the safety check we do on every visit.

The number is on the written estimate before anything starts, and the invoice matches it. Five years on parts and labor, every repair and every install.

Sources

1. DASMA — Technical Data Sheets (Door & Access Systems Manufacturers Association)
2. Wayne Dalton — TorqueMaster counterbalance
3. Amarr — residential garage door FAQs

All sources read 8 September 2026. Linked so you can check them rather than take our word for it.

Written from the manufacturers’ own published guidance — every source is linked above.

Straight answers

Questions people ask about this.

Describe it however makes sense to you

Read enough? Tell us about the door.

However you describe it is enough — no part names needed. The visit and the written estimate cost you nothing, and nothing starts until you approve the number.

• However you describe it is enough. No part names needed.
• The written estimate is free. Nothing owed if you pass.
• Nobody starts the repair until you approve the number.