For peak performance, each component of your garage door needs to be in prime condition. Among these parts, the cables of your garage door play a particularly vital role.
These cables are integral to the counterbalance system of your garage door. Therefore, if they detach from the drums or pulleys to which they should be connected, your garage door will face operational issues, rendering it incapable of opening or closing effectively. In certain scenarios, should the cables disengage unexpectedly, you might find your garage door inconveniently stuck in a partially open position.
The significance of cables lies in their function as the conduits for transferring the energy from the garage door’s springs to the door itself. These cables navigate through a series of drums and pulleys, ensuring the correct amount of tension is applied to the lines each time the garage door is operated.
While the springs of your garage door are subject to considerable tension, much of this is typically transferred to the cables. However, should the cables suffer from looseness or damage, the springs lose their capacity to exert the necessary lifting force, leading to operational issues. This underscores the importance of timely and effective garage door cable repair.
How can garage door cables come loose?
Having one or more of your garage door’s cables slip off the drums will result in your garage door failing to work properly, and in most cases, it will stop working altogether. Unfortunately, there are a variety of ways that this kind of problem can arise. The following are some of the main causes:
1. The door closes on an object
The primary reason that cables slip off the drums is that the door is set down on top of an object when it is closing. Things, like car bumpers, broom handles, chairs, and tools can block the path of the garage door’s safety eyes, which sit about six inches off the ground.
When the garage door is set down on an object, its weight distribution becomes uneven, creating slack in the cables on one side of the door. As a result of this slack, the cables may jump across the grooves in the drums, causing them to tangle or snap.
2. Broken torsion spring
If a spring ever breaks while your garage door is open, it could come crashing down. If your garage door only has one torsion spring, it cannot rely on a backup if that spring breaks, which could lead to slack in the cables that leads to them slipping out of the grooves. If this happens, once again, they can become tangled or worse.
3. Broken extension spring
While torsion springs mount over the top of your garage door, extension springs are located along the horizontal tracks and stretch out. These springs add tension as the door closes and release that tension when it opens.
If one of these springs ever breaks, your garage door’s cables can unwrap or become tangled around the pulley. You can tell that this has happened if you notice slack in the cables and see a loose extension spring hanging down.
4. Excessive manual force
If you do not have an automatic garage door opener installed, you need to open and close your door using manual force manually. Fully open garage doors rest anywhere from zero to three inches in the opening, making the bottom of the lowest garage door section visible when the door is fully open.
However, if the door is raised too fast or it is raised above the parallel with the header, its cables can slip off the drums.
5. Corrosion from damp environments
In some instances, moisture and chemicals (like road salt) can cause your garage door’s metal components, such as cable fittings, to weaken over time. The combination of iron, water, and oxygen can lead to rust, which consequently weakens the metal, progressively turning it into a flaky powder. When cables become significantly weakened, they can eventually break.
6. Improper spring configuration
When your garage door is installed, the torsion and extension springs need to be calibrated and placed according to specific manufacturer instructions for the door to function properly. If these instructions are not exactly followed, the springs could become too weak or too hot, causing slack in the cables and throwing them off the drums.
On the other hand, if the springs are too strong, it could negatively impact the safety and performance of the garage, as the door will quickly spring up and move past the designed maximum opening position.
7. Loose or uneven installation
If your garage door is installed and the cable drums are set, there must be relatively even cable tension on each side of the door. Otherwise, if one cable drum is tighter than the other, the opposite side will likely come unwrapped.
Problems can also occur when your garage door is installed on an uneven surface. If one side of the door hits the concrete before the other, it will cause slack in the cables on that side.
How Profix Garage Door Repair Can Help if Your Garage Door Cables Have Come Loose
Trying to operate your garage door when you have damaged or broken cables can cause significant damage to the entire system. However, examining and attempting to fix garage door cables on your own can be dangerous, as the cables and springs are under a huge amount of tension.
If you live in the GTA and suspect that your garage door cable came off, call Profix Garage Door Repair, and we can help resolve the issue in no time.
Someone from our team of experts can assess to determine the status of your cables and investigate whether they are damaged or not. Then, we can provide you with an estimate and replace your cables to return functionality to your garage door and keep it safe.
We will also assess the situation and examine why your cables came off the drums. This way, we can help you to come up with a long-lasting solution that will prevent the same issue from recurring down the line.
When cables come loose, it can prevent your garage door from opening, which may cause some significant inconveniences, especially if your car is in your garage and you need it to get somewhere important.
Fortunately, we offer emergency repairs 24/7, so we can help you solve your issue quickly and efficiently no matter when you call. You can depend on us to handle all of your garage door repair needs, thus keeping you and your family safe.
For more information about our garage door cable repair services or to learn more about the other garage maintenance and repair services that we offer, call Profix Garage Door Repair at 647-724-4477 or contact us here.