What You Are Seeing
A door that suddenly feels twice as heavy, won't stay up on its own, or slams down the last foot of travel is telling you the spring has let go or is about to. Sometimes you'll hear a loud bang from the garage - that's the spring itself. Other times it's quieter: the opener strains, chains or belts jump a little, and the door opens in jerks instead of a smooth pull. If your door was installed around that 1978 build era and has never had the spring replaced, age alone is reason enough to have it checked before it fails on you, not after.
The Cost of This Job
We don't post a flat number here because spring cost depends on whether you've got one spring or two, the door's weight, and whether the drums or cables need attention at the same time. What we can tell you is that Caledonia's median household income runs lower than the wider West Allis service area's $108,690 - closer to $91,053 here - and that's part of why we quote the job plainly before we touch anything, rather than padding it with upsells the door doesn't need.
What the Fix Involves
We measure the door's weight and the existing wire size and length rather than guessing from the spring that's already there, since a mismatched replacement is one of the most common reasons a spring fails early a second time. For a 1978-era door, that usually means going up in wire gauge from whatever was standard when the house was built, because the original spec was sized for a door that's lighter than most of what's hung in these openings now. We replace both springs on a two-spring setup even if only one has broken, check the cables and drums while the tension is off, and leave the door balanced so it holds at any point when you lift it by hand.
The DIY Question
A torsion spring under tension can seriously hurt you, and winding bars plus a properly rated spring are not things most garages have lying around. We won't talk anyone into a DIY torsion spring job - it's one of the few repairs in this trade where the cost of a mistake is an ER visit, not a redo. If you're comfortable with hand tools, replacing a broken extension spring on an older stretch-style setup is more forgiving, but that hardware is rare on Caledonia's 1978-era doors, which were built with torsion systems from the start.
