A garage door that feels heavy when you disconnect the opener is not an opener problem. It is a spring problem. The opener is designed to guide a door that is already balanced — not to muscle dead weight. If you have to heave it, something in the counterbalance system has given out.
Start with the balance test. It takes thirty seconds and tells you everything.
How to run the balance test
Close the door fully. Pull the red emergency-release cord so the trolley disconnects from the opener carriage. Lift the door by hand until it sits about waist high — roughly three feet off the floor — and let go.
Three things can happen:
It stays put. The springs are doing their job. The door is balanced. If it still felt heavy on the way up, the rollers or hinges are binding, or the track is out of alignment.
It drifts down slowly. The springs are weak or the wrong size. They are carrying some weight but not enough. The door will get heavier as the springs continue to relax.
It slams down. The springs are broken, severely under-wound, or missing entirely. Do not try to lift it again. The full weight of the door — 150 to 300 pounds for a typical residential section — is now on you.
Why the door feels heavy
Broken torsion spring
This is the most common cause on modern residential doors. A torsion spring sits on a shaft above the opening. When it snaps, you lose all counterbalance at once. You will usually hear a loud bang — like a gunshot — from the garage sometime in the last day or two. If you did not hear it, look at the spring. A clean gap in the coils, typically two to three inches wide, confirms the break.
Broken extension spring
Older doors and some low-headroom setups run extension springs along the horizontal tracks. When one breaks, the door crooks sideways as it moves because the other side is still pulling. The cables often go slack and jump the drums. You will see the broken spring hanging in two pieces, usually with a safety cable threaded through the middle.
Wrong spring size
A door that has felt heavy since the day it was installed — or since the last spring replacement — was likely fitted with the wrong wire size or inside diameter. Springs are calibrated to the door weight, height, and drum radius. A mismatch of one wire gauge changes the lift by twenty pounds or more. The door never balances correctly, and the opener burns out early.
Springs wound to the wrong tension
Even the right spring fails if the winding count is off. Too few turns and the door is heavy. Too many and it wants to fly up on its own. Both conditions wear the opener and the hardware. The correct turn count is stamped on the spring tag or calculated from the door height and drum circumference. Guessing is how you get a door that fights you every time.
Binding rollers, hinges, or track
Sometimes the springs are fine but the door still drags. Steel rollers without bearings seize after a few years. Hinge pins wear oval. A track bracket that took a hit from a car bumper pushes the track into the roller path. Disconnect the opener and lift the door slowly by hand. You will feel the catch points. They usually show up in the same spot every cycle.
What not to do
Do not add turns to a spring that is already broken. The cones will slip or the shaft will twist. You will not gain lift; you will create a bomb.
Do not replace only one spring on a two-spring system. The old spring has lost tension through fatigue. The new one will carry the load unevenly and fail fast. Replace them as a pair.
Do not run the opener on a heavy door. The motor will overheat, the drive gear will strip, and the trolley will crack. An opener is a guide, not a winch.
Do not stand under the door while testing. If a spring lets go or a cable snaps, the door falls at free-fall speed. Stand to the side.
When to call a technician
If the balance test shows the door drifting or slamming, the springs need service. Torsion springs are under extreme load — winding and unwinding them requires the right bars, the right technique, and a clear head. Extension springs are less violent but the cables and pulleys store plenty of energy.
A residential service truck carries the common spring sizes for standard door heights and weights. The job usually takes under an hour: remove the old springs, verify the door weight with a scale, install the correct pair, wind to spec, lubricate the bearings and rollers, and re-test balance.
If the springs test fine but the door still binds, the fix is mechanical — rollers, hinges, track alignment, or cable drum seating. Same visit.
A note on lubrication
White lithium grease on the roller stems, hinge pins, and bearing plates. Light oil on the torsion spring coils — wipe the excess so it does not fling onto the door panels. Do not use WD-40 as a lubricant; it is a solvent and it dries out the metal. Do not spray the tracks. Grease on the track face collects grit and turns into grinding paste.
A balanced door lifts with two fingers. If yours does not, the springs are not doing their job. The balance test tells you that much in half a minute. The rest is just the repair.
Call 778-873-7282 — Metro Vancouver.