Garage door spring cost dataset
This is the complete dataset behind the spring calculator, at national rates. It is a short job with a small parts list, and almost everything interesting about it is in one number that comes on the box and never on the invoice: the cycle rating. Everything below is built to turn that number into years and into dollars per year. Last reviewed 2026-08-22.
Cost per year of service
A pair of torsion springs on a double door with the cables replaced. One cycle is up and down once, so the columns are households that use the door more or less.
| Rating | Cost | 2/day | 4/day | 8/day | 12/day |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10,000 | $491 | $3614 yr | $727 yr | $1433 yr | $2152 yr |
| 20,000 | $601 | $2227 yr | $4414 yr | $887 yr | $1325 yr |
| 50,000 | $798 | $1268 yr | $2334 yr | $4717 yr | $7011 yr |
Read down a column rather than across a row. Within any usage pattern the cost per year falls as the rating rises, and it falls because the expensive part of the job — getting a stocked van to the house — is identical whichever spring goes on. The cheap spring is not cheaper. It just brings the next invoice closer.
How the spring price is scaled
A spring is specified by wire diameter, inside diameter and length, and those come from the weight of the door. Rather than pretend to know your door’s weight, the model scales a base price by two factors.
| Single door (8–9 ft wide) | ×1 |
|---|---|
| Double door (16–18 ft wide) | ×1.25 |
| Oversize or heavy door (20 ft, or solid wood) | ×1.65 |
| 10,000 cycles | ×1 |
|---|---|
| 20,000 cycles | ×1.5 |
| 50,000 cycles | ×2.4 |
Both sets of factors are our estimate, not a published table. They are the numbers most worth disagreeing with, and the breakdown shows them as a quantity — “2.5 spring equivalents” — rather than hiding them inside a unit price.
Line items
The torsion and extension lines are alternatives, never both. The service call is the floor under every figure on this page, and it is why doing the cables and the rollers in the same visit costs so much less than doing them later.
| Line item | Unit | Material | Equipment / hr | Trade | Data |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Torsion spring, sized to the door (conditional)springs × size factor (1 single, 1.25 double, 1.65 oversize) × cycle factor (1 at 10k, 1.5 at 20k, 2.4 at 50k) | spring equivalent | $45 – $130 | — | — | estimated±49% |
| Extension spring and containment cable (conditional)springs × size factor × cycle factor, as above | spring equivalent | $25 – $80 | — | — | estimated±52% |
| Winding cones, bearings and fixings (conditional)1 on a torsion system | lot | $18 – $55 | — | — | estimated±51% |
| Lift cables (conditional)1 pair where the cables are replaced | pair | $20 – $60 | — | — | estimated±50% |
| Centre bearing, end bearing plates and shaft (conditional)1 where bearings and shaft are replaced | lot | $45 – $165 | — | — | estimated±57% |
| Rollers (conditional)10 per door where the rollers are replaced | each | $4.00 – $16 | — | — | estimated±60% |
| Service call and vehicle1 per visit | each | $60 – $140 | — | — | estimated±40% |
| Out-of-hours or same-day premium (conditional)1 where the visit is urgent or out of hours | each | $75 – $220 | — | — | estimated±49% |
| Door technician: unwind, replace, wind and balance1.5 h torsion, 1 h extension, +0.5 cables, +0.5 rollers, +1 bearings (modelled) | hour | — | — | Maintenance and Repair Workers, General | sourced |
The reasoning behind each figure
Written out so a door technician can point at the exact assumption that is wrong.
- Torsion spring, sized to the doorestimated, ±49%
- Priced per spring at the standard 10,000-cycle wire and then scaled: 1.25× on a double door and 1.65× on an oversize or solid timber one, because a heavier door needs thicker wire on a larger drum. High-cycle springs multiply again — 1.5× at 20,000 cycles and 2.4× at 50,000.
- A spring is specified by wire size, inside diameter and length, and those three come from the weight of YOUR door and its track radius. Fitting a spring that is merely close leaves the door out of balance, which is what then wears the opener out.
- The band is the material only. The visit is priced separately below, and on this job the visit is the larger half.
- Extension spring and containment cableestimated, ±52%
- Cheaper than a torsion spring and paired with the safety cable that runs through the middle of it. That cable is not optional and not decoration: it is what stops a broken extension spring travelling across the garage.
- If your door has extension springs without containment cables through them, that is worth fixing whether or not the springs have broken. It is the cheapest line on this page.
- Winding cones, bearings and fixingsestimated, ±51%
- The stationary and winding cones come fitted to a new torsion spring, along with the set screws and the small parts that go with a spring change.
- Small money and it is on every real invoice, which is why it is listed rather than folded into the spring price.
- Lift cablesestimated, ±50%
- The two steel cables that run from the bottom bracket to the drum. They are the same age as the springs, they fray from the inside where you cannot see it, and the technician is already standing there with the door disconnected.
- This is the one add-on on this page that is almost always worth taking, because the labour to do it later is the whole visit again.
- Centre bearing, end bearing plates and shaftestimated, ±57%
- Only where the bearings are worn or the shaft is bent, which shows as a squeal on every cycle or as a door that runs crooked. It is not routine.
- A worn centre bearing eats the next set of springs, so replacing springs without it on a door that squeals is buying the same problem twice.
- Rollersestimated, ±60%
- Ten per door, which is the usual count on a sectional door of four panels. The band spans plain steel at the bottom and sealed nylon bearings at the top, and the nylon ones are most of why a quiet door is quiet.
- Like the cables, the argument is the visit rather than the part: the technician is already there with the door disconnected.
- Service call and vehicleestimated, ±40%
- Getting a stocked van to the house. It is charged once whatever is done while there, and it is the reason a spring change has a floor price well above the cost of a spring.
- It is also the whole argument for replacing both springs, the cables and the rollers in one visit rather than in three.
- Out-of-hours or same-day premiumestimated, ±49%
- Evenings, weekends and same-day emergency work. A broken spring usually means a car trapped inside or a door that cannot be secured, which is exactly why this premium exists and why it is paid.
- The way to never pay it is to replace a spring before it breaks, which is what the cycle arithmetic on this page is for.
- Door technician: unwind, replace, wind and balance
- An hour and a half for a straight pair of torsion springs, plus half an hour for cables, half an hour for rollers and an hour for bearings and shaft. Extension springs are quicker at an hour.
- The wage is official BLS data adjusted to your metropolitan area, and this is one of the few trades on this site where that is solid ground: BLS publishes maintenance and repair workers in all 530 areas of our index, so there is no fallback anywhere. The hours are our estimate.
- Most of that time is not fitting the spring. It is winding it to the right tension and then checking the balance, which means disconnecting the opener and finding out whether the door stays put halfway. A door that drifts is a door whose springs are wrong.
Not included in this dataset
- Doing it yourself
- This page prices a technician and does not tell you what to do. What it will say is the physical fact, because it is the fact that decides everything else: a torsion spring on a double door is wound to several hundred inch-pounds of torque, and it is unwound by putting two steel bars into a cone and letting it back a quarter turn at a time. If a bar slips, it goes somewhere. Extension springs store less energy but throw further when they fail, which is what the containment cable is for.
- The opener
- A broken spring often gets blamed on the opener, because the opener is what stops working. It is the other way round: the springs carry the weight and the opener only guides a balanced door. Replacing an opener to fix a spring problem burns the new opener out too. Opener replacement is a separate job.
- The door itself
- Bent sections, a cracked top rail or a door that has been reversed into are door repairs, not spring repairs. Where a section is beyond repair, replacing the door is often cheaper than one panel of a discontinued model.
- Track and jamb repair
- Bent track, a loose jamb or a header that has moved are structural to the door and are priced by what is wrong. They are not part of a spring change.
- Permits
- No jurisdiction we know of requires a permit to replace a garage door spring.
Use the calculator for your own door and usage, see the federal standard the opener is built to at 16 CFR 1211, or read the full method.