Protection from roll-up garage door spring failure

[YellowHaze]

I came across an interesting post in "The Pantera Place" for protecting your prized possession from getting slammed by a broken roll-up garage door spring. These springs will fail within approximately 7-9 years of normal use. One Pantera owner told of the sad story behind the gash to his Pantera's deck lid from a flying spring fragment.

The first photo is a picture of the PVC contraption he made to shield his car from a broken spring fragment. A nice idea, but maybe more complex than it needs to be. I gave this a few seconds thought and came up with a more simple solution using nylon netting. Here are two photos of what took me less than 20 minutes to install. I now have one less thing to worry about with the 4-wheel residents who live in my garage.

My solution...

 

[Bram]

Good information, an innovative design solution.


Bram

 

[Mugen NSX-R]

$20 says a broken spring will go right thru the nylon netting, its not pretty when one fails, I will never own a garage with those.

 

[YellowHaze]

$20 says a broken spring will go right thru the nylon netting, its not pretty when one fails, I will never own a garage with those.

I really don't think so. Most simply crack and don't fly into pieces. However, I suppose it all depends on variables such as the size of the door, spring tension, proper installation, etc. This netting is very strong and mounted close enough to the spring to contain one that has a catastrophic failure- the less common type. For a few dollars and 20 minutes of my time, this amounts to cheap insurance and some peace of mind.

 

[pgilliam1]

Both good ideas, but the PVC does look somewhat more substantial with 100% blockage. I have had these springs break but they never have broken in pieces or come off the shaft. I wonder how often that happens? On the other hand - all it takes is once !@#$%^!
Happy Motoring!

 

[Hrant]

Perhaps such concern is valid for older models - but aren't they supposed to have some safety feature. I have one too! Think about the potential liability in a litigiously happy society!

 

[EAC]

We had the old style break, the springs that went on the sides of the doors.... you know, the 40 lbs springs. Had one snap one night and do $2,500 worth of damage to our CX7. Sounded like a bomb went off.

 

[Malibu Rapper]

I had one of those old garage doors with the springs on the side and the big heavy door that didn't roll up (extension spring). One day I parked, closed the garage door and went upstairs. Then I hear this huge bang that shook the house. I go into the garage and I can't figure out what it was. Then I found the broken spring and it was fine. There was a cable in the middle that caught it and prevented it from doing any damage.

 

[Hrant]

I had one of those old garage doors with the springs on the side and the big heavy door that didn't roll up (extension spring). One day I parked, closed the garage door and went upstairs. Then I hear this huge bang that shook the house. I go into the garage and I can't figure out what it was. Then I found the broken spring and it was fine. There was a cable in the middle that caught it and prevented it from doing any damage.

I agree. Years ago when I had a similar dorr/springs the cable holds it in place.

I did check with the company that installed my garage door, and the style in the OP can't have springs flying off either as the one single bar that goes through both springs will hold it in place. The only explanation that they could offer as to how one did is if it was an added "extension spring and I am not sure how that would be installed.

And no, there is no particular maintenance on these either.

 

[Vega$ NSX]

I've had two of the center mounted springs on the shaft break on me. The first time it happened, I had no idea what the hell it was. It sounded like a bomb going off, shook all the windows and scared the hell out of me. I thought a bomb had gone off and went outside to see if anything had exploded. It wasn't until the next morning that I couldn't open the garage door, that I realized the spring had broken. The second time it broke, it was in the middle of the night. I kind of woke up and 1/2 thought I was dreaming and just fell back asleep.

In both cases the spring did not break into multiple pieces. They broke identically and just snapped and "unwound" itself across the shaft. They caused no damage. I believe the current spring design does not allow the spring to break into pieces and cause collateral damage.

 

[ftuhy]

I went to the center-mounted dual torsion springs when I had custom track made to clear my storage lift 10 years ago. If you look at the spring design, most likely its going to break at one of the end fittings. I'm not sure what it would take to have a less than one turn section break off and come off of that center shaft, but that probability is so small, its not worth worrying about.

As an engineer, I went through the equations and designed my own springs. You can make the springs more reliable by using two springs instead of one (many suppliers like to provide only one spring for 8' or 9' wide single doors), and by choosing the longest possible springs to fit your application. There are lots of variables (spring material thickness, outer spring diameter, total number of spring coils, number of turns needed to raise the height of your door, etc.) But, if you tell a spring shop that you want the most reliable (ie, least stressed) spring possible, they can build one for you.

 

[Briank]

The torsion spring style springs pose not danger. They are captive on the shaft and they don't break into pieces. I am sure you Pantera Place reference was for a pull spring setup that when they break can swing down and hit the car. The solution for that is to place a cable through then so they can't fall not unlike the shaft is a torsion spring.

 

[gdae]

For what it's worth, we had one of two torsion springs fail on our door awhile back. All that happened was that the spring relaxed. It didn't throw any pieces -- not to say that that's impossible.

 

[ralph cerbone]

two types of springs , torsion & extension, extension is the old type , i beleive it is some type of code now that you have to cage the ext. spring ,had a door put on my addition in 95 and it was caged (run a cable thru the spring and anchor it so if it breaks spring is contained , i have been in garages when an extension spring breaks , not good ,make sure if you have this type cage it , when torsion springs break they dont create the same problem as far as i seen , but thet are dangerous to preload :wink:

 

[Hapa88]

Maybe the one that broke and caused damage was this style?

I can't see how the springs you have would shatter to the point of leaving the shaft that's running down the middle of them. I would think they usually break like this: