Tacoma, WA · Garage Door Service
Garage Door Spring Repair for Lakewood's 1970s Housing Stock
Spring repair for Lakewood's 1970s-era garage doors. We travel from Tacoma to fix broken torsion and extension springs on original hardware.
- Repairs & new doors
- Springs & openers
- Serving 4 nearby communities
Parts We Carry
Lakewood's houses mostly went up around 1974, which puts most garage doors here a decade or more ahead of the newer stock you'll find closer to the center of Tacoma. That earlier build date usually means a single-layer steel door or a solid wood panel door, either 16x7 for two-car openings or 9x7 for singles, hung on the torsion hardware that was standard for that weight class at the time. Those doors are heavier per square foot than the insulated steel doors sold today, so the springs sized to lift them are a specific wind count and wire gauge, not a generic size you grab off a shelf.
We carry torsion springs in the ranges that match 1970s door weights, plus the extension spring sets still found on some of the older single-car setups that never got upgraded to torsion. If a spring on a Lakewood job is a size we don't have loaded on the truck, we'll say so rather than force a close-enough substitute onto a door it wasn't rated for. One honest limitation: on a handful of oddball wood doors from that era, the exact spring spec takes a special order, and that can push the job out a day or two.
The Cost of This Job
Lakewood sits in a service area where household income runs lower than some of the newer suburbs we also cover, at a median around $70,524, and that's part of why we don't push full door replacement on a Lakewood call unless the door itself is actually failing. Most of the time, a broken spring on a 1974-era door is a spring job, not a door job, and we price it that way.
What changes the number is wind count and whether you're on a single torsion spring versus a two-spring setup, which was common on the heavier wood doors from that period. We don't have a flat rate to quote you here without seeing the door, but we can tell you upfront that we're pricing the spring and the labor to lift and hang it safely, not a new opener or new panels you don't need.
What You Are Seeing
If a torsion spring lets go on a door this age, you'll usually hear it before you see it, a loud bang from the garage, often when nobody's touched the door in hours. After that, the door either won't lift at all or it lifts a few inches and stalls, because the opener was never built to carry the full deadweight of a wood or heavy steel panel door on its own.
On the older extension-spring setups still out there on some Lakewood singles, the failure looks different. One side of the door sags, or the door runs crooked in the track, because one spring is stretched out and the other is still holding. Either way, the fix isn't to force the opener to do the spring's job. That burns out the motor and, on the heavier doors common to this era, it can pull the top panel loose from the track hardware.
Getting It Booked In
We run this job out of Tacoma and cover Lakewood as part of the wider service area, about 7 miles out. There's no local branch to call ahead to, just a truck that comes to you, so when you book, we're scheduling around that drive time along with everything else on the route that day.
Tell us the door's rough age and whether it's wood or steel when you call, since that's most of what determines which spring we bring. If you know it's a two-car door, that also narrows things down, since those almost always run heavier springs than a single. We'd rather ask the question upfront than show up with the wrong wind count and need a second trip.
How We Fix It
The job starts with releasing tension on the remaining spring safely before anything else happens, since a door with one spring already broken and the other still loaded is not something to work on blind. From there we pull the broken spring, match it to the correct wind and wire gauge for the door's weight, and set the new spring with the torsion bar locked off until it's fully mounted.
Once it's hung, we balance the door by hand, lifting it partway and letting go to check it holds position on its own, which is the real test on a heavier 1970s-era door rather than just watching the opener run it up and down. We also check the cables and the drums while we're in there, since on doors this age a worn cable is often close behind a failed spring, and it's a cheap thing to replace in the same visit rather than a second call later.
Frequently asked questions
Why did my garage door spring break with no warning?
Torsion and extension springs wear out from cycle count, not from a single event, so they fail after thousands of lift-and-lower cycles rather than giving you advance notice. On a door built around 1974, the original spring has likely been doing that job for decades, so sudden failure after years of normal use is expected, not a sign anything else went wrong first.
Can I replace just one spring if I have a two-spring door?
You can, but we generally replace both at the same time on a two-spring setup. If one spring broke from cycle wear, the other is close behind it, and springs that don't match in age and tension put uneven load on the door and the opener. It costs more upfront but saves you a second service call.
Do you carry springs for older wood garage doors?
Yes, for most standard torsion and extension sizes used on wood doors from this era. A handful of less common specs need to be special ordered, which can add a day or two to the job, but we'll tell you at the time of booking if your door looks like one of those.
Is it cheaper to replace the whole door instead of just the spring?
Almost never, if the door panels and track are still sound. A spring replacement is a fraction of the cost of a new door. We only bring up replacement when the door itself has damage beyond the spring, like warped panels or a track that's been bent from running on a broken spring too long.
Book garage door service in Tacoma
Call now or request a quote - tell us what the door is doing and where you are.