Never postpone repairs after the garage door cable snaps. The longer you wait, the more the damages can add up. Garage doors have cables on each side to lift and lower the garage door. Over time, wear and tear can take their toll. If you see fraying cables, you may want to replace them before they snap. Having the cables snap always feels traumatic because it makes a loud noise. Dealing with them before they snap keeps you from having a scare.
When one cable breaks, the full weight of the garage door goes on the other cable. The strain can make the garage door lift unevenly or not at all. Extra weight on the remaining cable can cause that one to snap as well. Hearing the garage door squeal or if it looks crooked could indicate that the garage door has had one of the cables snap.
Garage Door Cable Snapped
You can spot a broken garage door cable because you will see a couple possible signs, such as:
All signs like this warrant calling in a garage door professional who understands how to operate on garage doors. They can replace a broken cable safely.
Why Garage Door Cables Snap
You have a few things that can cause garage door cables to snap like normal wear and tear, water damage, cold climate and issues with other working parts. Like any working part on the garage door, the inner mechanics start to wear down over time. They might break because of rust that forms on the cables. Replacing both the cables and the springs on the garage door will cost you anywhere from $175 to $450. In some cases, you may have to replace the drums and rolls of the garage door along with the springs and cables. However, that isn’t common.
Proper maintenance can go a long way to making your garage door cables last as long as possible. You have to oil parts like the springs and cables regularly to keep rust and corrosion from taking over your garage door. After some time, you will want to replace older parts with newer ones. When one part of the garage door doesn’t work well, the rest of it won’t do as well either. Inspect your garage door at least once a year.
Some of the areas where preventative maintenance can make a big difference include:
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Tightening the bolts and screws
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Lubricating the components
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Garage Door Cable Snapped
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Adjusting the spring tension as needed
Important to note: Never do anything with the spring tension yourself. A garage door springs holds a ton of pressure behind it. Someone unknowledgeable working on the spring could suffer a severe injury if it breaks.
Don’t open the garage door if you busted a cable. Leave it closed and call Star Solutions garage door in Jenkintown. We have the expertise and equipment to fix your garage door. Garage door springs usually last between seven to nine years, and the cables will usually go a little before that time frame. Many times, when a garage door professional replaces the cables on your door, he will replace the springs at the same time. The two go hand in hand. Don’t use the garage door if the cables have broke because it can cause further damage to the door. In particular, if the garage door was at full height and the last cable snaps, it can send the garage door slamming into the concrete, causing expensive damage to your garage door.
The cables on a garage door exist to open and close the garage door. They place the cables inside the springs to keep the spring in place if they snap, but the cables will often break before the springs. It serves as your warning sign. If the springs snap without the cable to hold them in place, they can shoot right through a wall. The high tension behind the spring has proven dangerous. Springs like this have to lift a 350 to 400-pound garage door, which puts their contents under extreme duress. You have had people who died when they didn’t install the spring correctly.
Garage Door Cables Critical to Health of Door
After you push the button, the cables will either move up or down through the pulley system. The cable gets wound or unwound through the pulley system. How the cable gets used will depend on the type of garage door needed. If the garage door uses torsion springs, then it will have torsion cables to loop from one end to the other.
The garage door cables keep the springs in place, but that doesn’t mean it will always do that. In some cases, the spring snaps and the cable was incorrectly positioned. The broken spring comes flying off without a guidance system. You should even take a damaged cable seriously because it means that the cable will soon snap. The cables used will depend on the weight of the door with stronger cables used for heavier doors. When you check your cables, look for frays or kinks. You should contact a professional as soon as possible at the first sign of damage. Beware of how lubricants can attract dirt to the cable and cause damage over time.
Garage Door Near Me
Don’t do anything with a garage door that has a broken cable. Leave it alone and contact a professional as soon as possible. One broken cable will transfer the burden of all the weight to a single cable, which increases the risk that it will break. You want to leave it as much as possible so that it doesn’t break before you can have a professional replace the cables. While small, they make up an integral part of the garage door.
