Most garage door springs sold in Canada are rated for 10,000 cycles. A cycle is one full open and one full close. The manufacturer’s math works out to roughly seven to nine years for the average household that uses the garage door about four times a day. That is the number you will find on the packaging and on most websites.
What those numbers do not account for is what happens to steel when it goes through temperature swings of 60 degrees or more, dozens of times every winter. In Winnipeg, that is exactly what your springs deal with every year. The result is that most springs in our city have a real-world lifespan that is meaningfully shorter than 10,000 cycles – and when they go, they usually go without much warning.
This guide explains why that happens, how to spot the signs that your springs are getting close to the end, and what you can do to get the most out of them.
What Type of Springs Does Your Garage Door Have?
Before getting into lifespan, it helps to know what kind of springs your door uses. There are two types and they behave differently.
Torsion springs
Torsion springs are the most common type in Winnipeg homes. They sit on a metal shaft mounted horizontally above the door opening. When the door closes, the spring winds up and stores tension. When you open the door, that tension releases and does most of the lifting work. Most residential doors have one torsion spring, though heavier doors sometimes have two.
Torsion springs are strong, reliable, and when they break, they usually break cleanly – which is why you hear that loud bang. The broken coil stays on the shaft rather than flying across the garage.
Extension springs
Extension springs run horizontally along the tracks on each side of the door. They stretch and contract as the door moves. Older homes and lighter doors more commonly use this style. Extension springs are generally less expensive to replace but when they fail, the broken spring can snap around violently if there is no safety cable threaded through the middle of it.
If you have extension springs without safety cables running through them, that is worth having fixed regardless of how old the springs are.
Why Winnipeg Winters Shorten Spring Life
Steel has a property called ductile-to-brittle transition temperature. Below a certain temperature, steel loses some of its ability to flex and absorb stress before it breaks. In extreme cold, metal that would normally bend under stress will crack instead.
Winnipeg regularly sees sustained temperatures below -20 in January and February, with cold snaps that push -35 or colder. During those stretches, your garage door springs are operating in conditions that put extra stress on the metal with every cycle.
The other factor is thermal cycling. When you drive into your garage on a cold evening and the door closes behind you, the spring goes from outdoor temperature to heated garage temperature fairly quickly. Over years of use, thousands of these temperature swings cause microscopic fatigue in the metal at points of high stress – the inner coils where tension concentrates – and that is where springs eventually crack.
Real-world lifespan in Winnipeg: Based on what we see on service calls, most torsion springs on Winnipeg homes last between five and eight years under regular use. Springs on doors used more than six times a day often do not make it past the five-year mark. Springs that have been lubricated regularly and maintained annually can sometimes reach ten years or beyond.
How Many Cycles Has Your Spring Used?
You can get a rough estimate of your spring’s cycle count by working out how many times per day your family uses the garage door and how many years it has been in service.
| Uses Per Day | Cycles Per Year | 10,000 Cycles Reached At |
|---|---|---|
| 2 (open and close once daily) | 730 | About 13.7 years |
| 4 (typical household) | 1,460 | About 6.8 years |
| 6 (busy household or home business) | 2,190 | About 4.6 years |
| 8 or more | 2,920+ | About 3.4 years or less |
Keep in mind these are the cycles at which springs are rated to reach end of life under average conditions. In Winnipeg’s climate, treat these numbers as an upper limit rather than a target.
Signs Your Springs Are Getting Close to the End
Springs rarely give you much notice before they break, but there are some things to watch for.
The door feels heavier when you lift it manually
Disconnect the opener by pulling the red emergency cord and try lifting the door by hand to about waist height, then let go. A properly balanced door with healthy springs will stay where you put it or drift very slowly. A door that drops immediately or feels like you are lifting it against resistance has springs that are losing tension. This is one of the clearest early warning signs.
The door opens unevenly
If one side of the door rises faster than the other, or the door looks slightly crooked in the frame while it is in motion, one spring is losing tension faster than the other. On a two-spring system this is a clear sign one spring is further along in its wear cycle.
The spring looks stretched or has visible gaps
A healthy torsion spring has tightly wound coils with no visible space between them when the door is in the closed position. If you can see gaps between the coils, or if the spring looks stretched out and thinner than it should be, it is getting close to failure.
The door makes a creaking sound when opening
A spring that is developing stress points along its coils will sometimes produce a creaking or slight squeaking sound during operation even after lubrication. This is different from the normal sounds of rollers and tracks and is usually more pronounced at the beginning of the open cycle when the spring releases its tension.
It has been more than seven years
In Winnipeg, if your springs are past the seven-year mark and you have not had them looked at, that is reason enough to book a maintenance visit. A technician can assess the spring’s remaining tension and condition and give you a realistic sense of how much life is left.
What Happens When a Spring Breaks
Most homeowners who have had a spring break describe it the same way: a loud bang from inside the garage, sometimes startling enough to bring them running from another room, followed by a door that will not open past a few inches.
When a torsion spring breaks, the coil separates. The two halves stay on the shaft but the spring no longer has any tension to counterbalance the door. The opener tries to pull the door up, hits the force limit within a few inches of travel, and stops. The door is effectively locked in place until the spring is replaced.
Do not keep trying the opener: If you think a spring has broken, do not keep hitting the opener button. The motor is trying to lift the full weight of the door with every attempt. On most doors, that is 90 to 200 kilograms. Running the opener against that load repeatedly will burn out the drive gear or the motor, turning a spring replacement into a spring-and-opener replacement.
Should You Replace One Spring or Both?
If you have a two-spring system and one breaks, we always recommend replacing both at the same time. The reason is straightforward: both springs were installed at the same time, have the same number of cycles on them, and have been through the same Winnipeg winters. If one has reached the end of its life, the other is very close behind. Replacing just one and leaving the second in place means another service call within weeks or months in most cases.
The labour cost of a spring replacement is mostly in the trip and the setup. Replacing the second spring while the door is already on the bench adds very little to the total cost compared to doing two separate jobs.
How to Get More Life Out of Your Springs
Lubricate twice a year
Keeping your springs lubricated reduces friction in the coils as they wind and unwind and helps protect the metal from corrosion. Use white lithium grease applied lightly along the coils – you do not need much. Do this in the fall before the cold season and again in spring. Avoid WD-40, which strips lubrication rather than adding it.
Annual balance test
Once a year, pull the emergency release cord and lift the door manually to about waist height. Let go. The door should stay in place or drift up very slowly. If it drops, the spring tension needs adjustment. A technician can adjust the tension to restore proper balance, which reduces the strain on both the springs and the opener motor.
Annual maintenance visit
Having a technician look at the door once a year – ideally in September or October before the cold season – lets you catch spring fatigue before it becomes a failure. It is a lot easier to schedule a spring replacement on a Tuesday afternoon than to deal with a broken spring on a Monday morning in January.
How Much Does Spring Replacement Cost in Winnipeg?
For a standard single torsion spring on a residential door, replacement typically runs between $180 and $280, parts and labour included. A two-spring replacement on a heavier door or a door that requires high-cycle springs runs $280 to $420. Costs vary depending on door size, spring type, and whether the call is an emergency or a scheduled appointment.
High-cycle springs – rated for 25,000 or 50,000 cycles – cost more upfront but make sense on doors that get heavy use, particularly if you are going to be in your home for another 10 or 15 years. We can advise on whether the upgrade is worth it for your situation when we are on site.
Need Your Springs Replaced in Winnipeg?
A1 Plus Door is based in Winnipeg and handles spring replacements across the city. We carry springs for all standard residential and commercial door sizes on our trucks. Most jobs are done in a single visit with no waiting on parts.
- Phone and text: (204) 404-3667
- Emergency service: 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
- Free estimates on replacements and upgrades
Common Questions About Garage Door Springs
Can I replace my own garage door spring?
We would strongly advise against it. Torsion springs are under several hundred pounds of tension even when they are broken. Working with them without the right winding bars, knowledge of the correct tension for your door’s weight, and experience with the process is genuinely dangerous. Most of the injuries we hear about from DIY spring work happen to people who thought they had it figured out. The repair cost is not high enough to be worth the risk.
How long does a spring replacement take?
Most torsion spring replacements take 45 minutes to an hour and a half depending on the door. Our technicians carry springs for all standard sizes so there is almost never a parts delay on a standard job.
Will my insurance cover a broken garage door spring?
Standard home insurance policies in Manitoba do not cover mechanical wear and tear, which is what a broken spring is. If the spring failure caused secondary damage – say the door fell and damaged a vehicle inside the garage – that damage may be covered under your home policy, but you would want to check with your insurer on the specifics.
What is the best spring for Winnipeg winters?
For most Winnipeg homes, a standard galvanized torsion spring rated for 10,000 cycles is adequate. If your door gets heavy use or you want to reduce the frequency of replacements, upgrading to a 25,000-cycle oil-tempered spring is worth the additional cost. The oil-tempered steel holds up better under repeated thermal cycling, which is particularly relevant in our climate.
