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
AfterCraftsman Torsion Spring Replacement: The Cumming Owner’s Guide
A Craftsman torsion spring replacement in Cumming typically runs $180-$340 installed, parts and labor included, and we carry compatible springs on the truck for most single and double-door Craftsman setups. The torsion spring is the counterweight system mounted on the header bar above your closed door – it stores the lifting force so the opener only has to guide, not lift. Most Cumming homeowners discover the failure the hard way: a sharp bang from the garage that sounds like a dropped barbell, followed by a door that won’t budge because the spring snapped clean through.
One spring breaks, and the door’s entire weight lands on the opener or the second spring if you have a two-spring system. We get these calls from all over Cumming, from Windermere to Vickery to the neighborhoods off Bethelview Road. The pattern is the same: the door worked fine yesterday, and today it’s dead weight.
Which Craftsman Models This Applies To
Craftsman garage doors have been sold through Sears and, more recently, through independent retailers and Craftsman’s direct channel. The torsion spring systems on most Craftsman doors built after 2000 follow the same hardware conventions as other major brands, but there’s a compatibility gotcha worth knowing: Craftsman doors originally sold as a package with a Craftsman opener often have extension springs, not torsion springs. If your Craftsman door has two long springs running parallel to the horizontal tracks, this page doesn’t apply – that’s a different part, a different failure mode, and a different price. Torsion springs sit on a single metal shaft above the header.
The right replacement spring depends on four measurements, not the door model alone: wire diameter (typically 0.207 to 0.273 inch on Craftsman residential doors), inside diameter (usually 2 inches), spring length, and wind direction. A Craftsman-branded spring is just a generic spring with a Craftsman label; there is no proprietary engineering inside it. Quality aftermarket springs from manufacturers like SSC or National match or exceed OEM specs at slightly lower cost, and we stock both. What matters is that the replacement spring’s wire diameter and coil count match the door’s weight and height. Get that wrong and the door balances poorly or the spring fails early.
Signs Your Craftsman Torsion Spring Replacement Is Failing
- Visible gap in the coil. A torsion spring under tension that snaps shows a clean separation, usually a 1/8 to 1/4-inch gap between two coils. This is the definitive sign, and the moment you see it the door should stay shut.
- The door opens six inches and stops. With one spring down on a two-spring door, the remaining spring can’t offset the door’s total weight. The opener strains against dead load, the safety reverse might trigger, and the opener’s motor will burn out if you keep trying it.
- The door feels heavy when you pull the release cord. A properly balanced door lifts with one hand and stays mid-track. If you pull the red emergency release and the door drops like a cinder block, the spring has lost tension, either through a break or fatigue.
- Cables are slack or off the drum. When the spring fails, the lift cables on either side lose tension and can unwind from the cable drums. A loose cable hanging near the track is a secondary symptom of spring failure, not a cable problem by itself.
- Loud bang from the garage. That’s the sound of the spring releasing stored torque. In Cumming’s humidity-heavy summers, corrosion accelerates spring metal fatigue, and a 7-year-old spring in a unconditioned garage can snap on a random Tuesday afternoon.
Before
AfterReplacement Cost & What’s Included
Our installed Craftsman torsion spring replacement in Cumming runs $180-$340 for a single spring, and $250-$400 when we replace both springs on a two-spring door. The range comes down to spring wire size, door weight, and whether we’re replacing one spring or the pair. Replacing both at once costs more up front but prevents the second, older spring from snapping within the next year and a half – which happens often enough that we quote both options on every two-spring door.
Every quote is a flat, written price delivered before any work starts. That’s Clause 1 of The Haven Standard, the documentation system we’ve worked under since 2015. The written scope includes the spring specs (wire diameter, inside diameter, length), whether we’re doing one or both springs, labor, and the disposal of the old spring. No surprise line items, no “while we’re in there” additions unless you approve them first. The warranty on our spring replacement work is covered by our 365-Day Done Right Promise: if it’s not right, we make it right. Name the part, quote the range, then fix it.
DIY or Call Us?
We’ll be direct: replacing a torsion spring is not a DIY job. A torsion spring under load stores enough energy to break bone or worse if the winding bars slip. This isn’t a warning-label formality; it’s the one garage door repair where we genuinely turn down work from homeowners who started it themselves and cracked the spring cone or bent the shaft. What you can safely do: pull the emergency release cord and test whether the door is balanced, check the spring for a visible gap, and take a photo of the broken part if you can see it clearly. Then stop.
What goes wrong in DIY attempts, beyond the injury risk: using the wrong wire diameter, winding the new spring backward, skipping the torsion tube bearing check, or forgetting to reset the cable drums so the door tracks unevenly. Each of these creates a door that fails again or damages tracks and openers. We’d rather hear from you before the attempt than after. Marcus Deller and our techs have been doing this in Cumming for years, and the jobs we fix fastest are the ones that arrived as a photo of a broken spring, not a half-wound replacement we have to un-fix.
FAQs
A Craftsman torsion spring in Cumming typically lasts 8-12 years, though Georgia’s high humidity can cut that to 6-8 years on an unconditioned garage where the spring sits exposed to moisture. Springs are rated in cycles (usually 10,000 for standard residential), and that’s a more accurate measure than years. If your door opens twice a day, a 10,000-cycle spring should last around 13 years. Call (470) 758-8863 and we’ll check your spring’s cycle rating and condition.
No. A broken torsion spring cannot be welded, spliced, or re-tensioned. The only correct fix is replacement with a spring matched to the door’s weight and height. Attempting a repair on a spring that has already snapped once creates a part that fails again, usually unpredictably and sometimes mid-cycle.
A single-spring replacement on a Craftsman door takes 45-90 minutes from arrival to a balanced test and cleanup. Two-spring replacements run closer to two hours. We photograph the failed spring before we touch it, per Clause 4 of The Haven Standard, then show you the broken part and the new spring specs before work begins.
Yes. Our trucks carry a range of torsion springs covering most Craftsman residential door weights, including low-headroom setups and 2-inch inside diameter springs. If your door needs a less common spring size, we can typically have it sourced and installed within one business day. We also stock compatible parts for LiftMaster, Chamberlain, and Genie openers, so we can address the opener if the spring failure stressed it.
Call Servo Garage Doors Cumming for Your Craftsman Spring Replacement
If your Craftsman torsion spring has snapped or you see a gap in the coil, call us at (470) 758-8863. A live person answers, 24/7 – not a recording, not a callback queue. We’ll ask what you’re seeing, quote the $180-$340 range over the phone, and get a technician to your Cumming address with the right spring on the truck. The written price comes before any work starts, the photo record is part of the job, and the warranty is a document, not a handshake.
Written by Marcus Deller, Owner, Servo Garage Doors Cumming at Servo Garage Doors Cumming, serving Cumming and nearby areas.