Full 25-point door and opener safety check with every visit - springs, cables, rollers, tracks, and your LiftMaster or Chamberlain opener included
You get a price before we start. It does not change when the truck arrives.
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Before
AfterClopay Torsion Spring Replacement: The Tarzana Owner’s Guide
We stock and install Clopay-compatible torsion springs in Tarzana, with a typical installed price of $180 to $340 depending on your door’s weight, height, and spring wire size. Most Clopay torsion spring replacements in this area are done same day, because we keep the common sizes on the truck and don’t order from a catalog after we diagnose. You’ll usually discover the failure the hard way: a sound like a firecracker going off in the garage, then a door that won’t lift more than a few inches.
What follows is what we’d tell you on the phone, minus the phone call: which Clopay doors this covers, what fails on these springs and why, what it costs, and whether you should touch it yourself. Short version on that last point: don’t.
Which Clopay Models This Applies To
This replacement guidance covers residential Clopay doors that run on a single or double torsion spring assembly above the opening: the Classic, Gallery, Coachman, Reserve, and Value Plus lines all use this setup in standard 7-foot and 8-foot heights. If your door is a Clopay and the spring sits on a steel tube mounted to the header, this is the part we’re talking about.
Clopay springs are wound to the door’s specific weight, which you’ll find on a sticker on the inside of the door section, usually near a hinge or bottom corner. That sticker lists the model, the door weight, and sometimes the spring ID. If the sticker is gone (it often is on older doors in Tarzana’s original 1960s and ’70s tract homes), we measure the old spring’s wire diameter, inside diameter, and coil count. Getting those right matters more than the Clopay name on the package: a spring wound for a 130-pound door on a 160-pound door will fail early or make the opener work too hard.
For OEM versus aftermarket: Clopay-branded springs are solid, but the major spring manufacturers make exact equivalents for every Clopay size at a meaningfully lower price. We’ll quote you the right spring for the door, and we’ll tell you which one it is. Nobody needs to guess, and that’s why there’s no “spring package” that costs the same on every door.
Signs Your Clopay Torsion Spring Replacement Is Failing
Most torsion spring failures are abrupt, but there are earlier warnings if you know what to look at. Here are the five that matter on Clopay residential doors in Tarzana:
- The door feels heavy and only opens a foot or two. The spring has likely snapped, and the opener is now fighting the full weight of the door. Continuing to use the opener this way burns out the motor and strips the gear.
- A loud bang in the garage, like a dropped toolbox. That’s the spring breaking under tension. If you find a two-inch gap in the coil where it used to be continuous, that’s your confirmation.
- Gaps in the coil while the door is closed. A fatigued spring loses tension and the coils start to separate slightly. You can see this by looking straight up at the spring with the door down, flashlight in hand.
- The door goes up crooked or binds on one side. Springs wear unevenly; when one has lost tension or broken, the other side of the door carries the load and the door racks in the track.
- Grinding or a sudden imbalance at the halfway point. A spring with internal stress cracks hasn’t fully failed but is no longer holding the door properly. We see this most often on Clopay doors that have passed the 8-to-10-year mark in Tarzana’s dry heat, which hardens the steel’s surface over time but doesn’t prevent interior fatigue.
Two of these are nuisance-level. The other three are mechanical failures getting worse. None of them are wise to ignore, because a door that operates unpredictably is a threat to the car, the opener, and anyone standing under it.
BeforeAfterReplacement Cost & What’s Included
The installed price for a Clopay torsion spring replacement in Tarzana lands between $180 and $340. At the low end you’re getting a single spring on a standard 7-foot, 90-to-110-pound door with straightforward access. The upper end is a 16-foot or 8-foot door, a heavier carriage-house style like the Clopay Coachman or Reserve, or a double-spring setup where both springs should be replaced at once, which we always recommend when one fails: the other is the same age and has lived the same life.
Labor and the spring itself are one line item. You get a flat written price and a written scope before anything comes off the truck, per Clause 1 of The Haven Standard. The spring carries a parts warranty, the installation carries our 365-Day Done Right Promise, and you walk away with a photo record of the old failed spring and the new one installed. If any written estimate from another Tarzana company comes in under ours, bring it: we’ll give a second opinion free.
DIY or Call Us?
Here’s the safety paragraph, and we mean every word of it. Torsion springs store enough energy to break fingers, hands, and arms when they let go. Winding a new spring without the proper bars and technique is the single most dangerous thing a homeowner can do in a garage. If the spring is snapped, wear eye protection and clear the area, but leave the spring alone. Do not stand on a ladder under the spring. Do not loosen the set screws. Do not let YouTube convince you it’s a Saturday morning job.
What you can safely do: check the spring visually for the crack or gap, confirm the door weight and model from the sticker, and take a photo of the whole assembly. Then call us at (424) 372-1317. Name the part, quote the range, then decide. That’s how we operate, and it’s exactly how this repair should go.
FAQs
In Tarzana’s climate, most Clopay torsion springs last between 7 and 12 years, or roughly 10,000 to 15,000 open-close cycles. The heat itself isn’t the enemy, it’s the cycle count and the spring’s wire gauge. Lighter-gauge springs fail sooner. If your door is used as the front door, four to six cycles a day will age the spring noticeably faster than a garage that only sees weekend use. That’s not a Tarzana problem, it’s a cycle math problem.
No. A torsion spring cannot be welded, spliced, or re-tensioned back into service. The steel has already failed under load, and any repair attempt leaves a weakened section under enormous tension. Replacement is the only correct fix. Call (424) 372-1317 for an exact quote, estimates are free.
A single spring swap on a standard Clopay door takes about 45 to 60 minutes. A double-spring replacement or a heavier door can push past 90 minutes. We carry the common Clopay spring sizes on the truck, so most Tarzana replacements are a single visit, and the quoted price is the price you pay when the job is done.
Yes. We stock the most common Clopay torsion spring sizes for 7-foot and 8-foot residential doors in Tarzana, including both standard and heavy-gauge wire. If we don’t have your exact size, we’ll have it in hand within one business day. We also stock parts for LiftMaster, Chamberlain, and Genie openers when a spring failure has taken the opener out with it.
Call Servo Garage Doors Tarzana
If you heard the bang, saw the gap in the spring, or just have a Clopay door that’s not lifting the way it used to, call (424) 372-1317. A real person answers, we’ll schedule a visit, and you’ll get a flat written price before any work begins. We’re led by Marcus Deller, and we’ve been documenting every repair since 2015. You’ll see the photo of the failed spring before you pay for the new one. That’s not a promise; it’s Clause 4.
Written by Marcus Deller, Owner & Lead Technician, Servo Garage Doors Tarzana at Servo Garage Doors Tarzana, serving Tarzana and nearby areas.