Spring Chicken

Here is the inside of our garage door. What is wrong with this picture? Well both our torsion springs are broken! There are 4 pieces when there are supposed to only be 2 (the springs should be intact on either side of the red tag). This meant that not only would our automatic garage door opener work, but neither would the manual mode.


There are few home projects that we are not willing to tackle ourselves. But this one had us a little hesitant. Why? Well first we'd have to order the springs, and purchase a winding bar and other tools. And then we'd have to figure out how to do this which would take the entire weekend at the very least. And if you read this tutorial, you'll notice that the word emergency room was mentioned 6 times (My personal favorite is "...the cable [could] rip through muscle and bone.")!



So enter David. He does this everyday. I know, because I asked him. He did a decent job but I really wished I had gone with Shlomo even though he was a bit of a hustler with his salesman techniques.

Anyway, David took off the broken springs and I set them aside so I knew what size and kind to order the next time this happens, and we could do it ourselves. Maybe. Here he is sliding on the new springs. And questioning why I am taking photos. Is it unacceptable to document this process?

Here are the new springs installed.

Here is the loose cable just dangling at the side of the door.

Here it is with the cable properly reattached.

So did I make the right choice to have this home project done for me? I know my eyeballs (and intact muscle and bone) thank me. What unexpected home project have you encountered?