Ringwood Door Specialists · Whitchurch-Stouffville
Garage Door Cable Replacement: preparing for the visit
Garage Doors · Whitchurch-Stouffville, Ontario
Standing inside with the door closed, you notice the cable on the right side near the floor has gone fuzzy. A handful of broken wires stick out like a bottle brush and the steel underneath is brown.
Worth answering before the call
Do you have the door's manual or a label showing the model? Is the door closed, fully open, or stuck partway? When were the springs last replaced, if you know?
Why should the bottom brackets never be loosened by hand?
The bottom bracket is where the cable attaches, so whenever the springs are wound it carries a share of the door's weight as tension. Loosening it while the counterbalance is loaded releases that tension all at once. Many manufacturers now fit tamper-resistant fasteners for this reason. The technician unloads the springs first, after which the bracket is just a piece of hardware to unbolt and replace.
Why is the door sitting crooked in the opening?
Each corner of the door is held by its own cable. When one cable stretches, slips its drum or breaks, that corner loses its lift and drops while the other stays up, so the door tips and usually wedges against the track. Setting both cables to the same length and tension is part of every cable replacement, and it is what brings the door back level.