>This work is risky, but the risk is comparable to doing your own car repairs, or climbing on the roof of your house to clean your gutters.
Notably, "unintentional fall" is the #1 cause of emergency department visits for adults [1], which is why I'd hire a professional to work on my roof too (and wince when they don't wear safety equipment). I'm not sure where "crushed by your own car" falls on the list, but while I'm perfectly comfortable digging around in the engine bay, you also could not pay me enough to crawl around under a poorly jacked-up car.
Which brings to mind some rather different designs. A rather small motor with a lot of mechanical advantage can easily open a close a garage door, and if a DC or low voltage AC motor is used, it could do so quite a few times even if the power goes out.
You can even buy off-the-shelf springless garage door systems!
(I’m honestly not sure why springs are common at all in this application. IIRC I grew up with a garage door driven via a motor with a worm gear that engaged with a long threaded shaft, and there were nonetheless a pair of springs. Surely the added cost of a better motor and some upgraded mounting hardware for the motor box would have been less than the cost of those springs, especially installed. Maybe these designs are all essentially unchanged from decades ago when a ~100W (shaft) motor that could operate at a controlled speed even under negative load would have been exotic and expensive?)
The shield is the steel tube that runs down the middle of the spring. When the spring breaks, it's got an integral safety containment, similar to the aircraft cable that is often run through extension style springs (which are probably far more dangerous when they break, though less dangerous to service).
> I’m honestly not sure why springs are common at all in this application.
They're nicely matched to the load profile of the door. As the door is fully closed, the spring is exerting maximum upward force. As sections of the door transition to the horizontal track, the spring is simultaneously relaxing some, meaning it exerts around half the force when the door is halfway up and very little force as the last segment hits the turn in the track. It's a pretty elegant match of mechanism to the load profile.
Garage doors are actually fairly heavy. By balancing the weight with a spring, you do a lot of favors to your mechanical advantage systems. (Eg: less wear, less advantage needed, the door can open in a reasonable amount of time…) You also do yourself a few favors for when things fail. (Eg: you pull the safety release and it’s possible to open the door without the motor.) Finally, power isn’t free and motors aren’t either; A spring is a really cheap way to reduce the cost of both of these things.
It is still, of course, a valid question to ask if it's worth having dangerous springs up there all the time for the rare event of the opener being inoperative.
Or maybe we just shouldn't have doors that are that heavy?
Attention is required when changing these, but they really don't pose that great of a risk. I've been present when one broke, and I've changed them myself. As noted by others - the spring stays contained by the metal shaft. They really aren't worth substituting with something that has more drawbacks when a spring's lifespan is on the order of decades.
Properly adjusted springs effectively cancel out the weight of the door. This makes it easy to open and close with and without an opener, and greatly limits the danger of a door falling closed under it's own weight, which can seriously hurt someone.
Yes. Until it happens to you, it seems like someone else's problem. I say this as someone who found himself staring at the sky with a concussion and whiplash after the ladder decided to walk out from under me on my concrete walkway. (I'll admit that it was probably my error, but I'll never really know since the ladder took a trip too). Now all trips up the ladder are treated with the gravity my younger self disregarded.
I'll add that it's very disconcerting to be unable to move or breathe as everything fades out...
Climbing onto a roof and changing garage springs are 2 things he says he'll never do. I was surprised how specific he was about it.
He knows lots of other handymen so I'm guessing he has heard lots of horror stories. Garage springs are no joke.
Other (generally older) doors have longitudinal springs. When the door is open, the spring is uncompressed, and very easy to change. Just make sure to block the door so it can't close while you're working, and install the safety wire (it goes through the spring so if they spring breaks, it doesn't hit something).
Modern doors usually don't have this kind because they take up space in the garage. The torsion kind are on top of the door and stay out of the way.
Most of these are not from DIY, but age realted
Construction workers have the second-highest number of workplace deaths (transportation workers are the highest) and among construction workers, falls are the most common cause of death.
Transport and construction are second and third in fatalities per worker-hour, with 'farming, fishing and forestry' the most dangerous per worker-hour.
So ladders aren't the most dangerous thing out there - but falls are pretty near the top of the list when it comes to workplace deaths.
That's not to say people can't use ladders safely - just if you're hauling a heavy ass drill up a ladder and it's stopping you using both hands, the cable's flapping around your legs, your pockets are full of sharp pointy tools, and it's raining - maybe think twice :)
Likewise with brake fluid changes. I can do it, but the risk/hassle just ain't worth it for the cost of a pro.
The fluid only degrades in the caliper, no need to replace it entirely, and no need for a computer when you do it like I described it.
I've done car repairs for decades, and climbed up on roofs when I had to, but I'm not dicking around with garage door springs.
Saving $1000 tiling your shower? That makes sense. Saving $100 and potentially maim yourself in the process? Hello garage door repairman.
Indeed, but it’s not difficult to set yourself up with multiple failsafes.
By the time I’m set up to get underneath a car, I’m in a safer situation than driving the car given how many things would have to go wrong for the car to fall on me.
I'm sure there are various types of car spring, the kind he was talking about was the stereotypical coil-of-metal spring. There's so much energy in there that a small slip up can be deadly.
Way back (like... 30 years ago) when I was working on my Mustang, the spring was separate from the strut. You had to drop the control arm enough to unload it and remove it, and there wasn't anything to contain it. I always tied it with a chain or a seat belt, and tried to not be directly in front of it during the unloading process. I knew a kid who got hit in the chest by a spring popping out; he did not make it. Removing it or installing a new one were both quite dangerous for the careless.
That's the factory-recommended procedure for several brands now and works well on my Mercedes and Honda. I was skeptical at first, but did the extraction and then removed the drain plug and the oil I got from the bottom wouldn't have half-filled a shot glass, so that's good enough for me.
As long as the filter is accessible from the top or side, I don't see the need to jack up most wet-sump cars (which is almost all of them).
I use ramps I built - solid 2x12. Those are extremely safe as there's nothing that can break, bend, or disintegrate. It's way more dangerous to drive than to work on the vehicle.
How much time did you spend changing oil?? It's a 20-30 min job once you have done it coupe of time and know the ropes. I sometimes do it myself not because I want to save few bucks, but because it's sometimes faster than going somewhere.
The vast majority of those are the mundane falling down the stairs or the elderly in bathtubs, not anything to do with roofs.
Absolutely, I agree. However, like any work, there's a safe way and a million unsafe ways to perform it. Crawling under a car on a jack is unsafe. Crawling under a car properly supported by jack stands is perfectly safe.
I replaced my own garage doors, not just because of the cost, but also because I could not find a contractor to do it inside of four months. I did my research, took my time, and got two 9x7' doors replaced in a weekend and a half at a leisurely pace for a third of the quotes I received from the pros.
The FUD spread online around garage doors is unreal.
If you don't know how to do it safely, don't attempt it. If you can spend a few hours learning how to do things properly and safely, go for it. It's not black magic. Garage door installers are people too, and it's not like the training is some dark arts ritual imbued upon them by shadowy figures. It's basic physics, geometry, and hand tools.
A chainsaw is scarier to me.
But plenty of people are fine with roofs and springs but terrified of electricity
I was half expecting him to say I needed other maintenance including new rollers, at which point I was going to call BS, because I replaced those rollers a couple three years ago and I'm about a million uses away from their rated million open/closes. Double sealed ball bearings, ask for them by name.
And every time a similar post or question is made the same responses are parroted again.
I’ve read so much Reddit in college that I would play a game where id try to guess what the top voted comments would say. After a while it becomes tiring to read the same things over and over again.
"Comparable" in that it's way, way greater, sure. Unless we're talking dangerous car repairs, like using a spring compressor to disassemble a strut &c. Or using harbor freight jack stands..
When my spring broke, I thought someone crashed their car into my house. It's an incredible amount of energy.
Garage door springs are up there with lathes & table saws, in terms of danger (IMO).
I wouldn't even consider owning a lathe. I know my limits, and even the chop saw in the garage gives me the shivers.
The saw grabbed the wood, and climbed up on it, and fired it at unbelievable speed at the wall. It punched a neat hole in the wall the exact size of the board, and the board disappeared into the next room.
I got rid of the saw after that, and bought a sweet Makita cutoff saw instead, and a table saw for ripping. I also bought one of those full face shields people use with chain saws. I like these better than the usual shields because they are a wire mesh, and screens don't fog up.
My cousin is a professional furniture maker and lost the tips of 3 fingers to a table saw. It happens quickly.
Maybe in 2002? They seem decent these days. There are far worse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXzusz_eUy8
But after several years and a few close calls with cars unexpectedly shifting on the stands while applying work forces from below, I started using ramps and/or cribbing made of plain stacked dimensional lumber like 2x8s, and just scrap blocks of wood in general I'd taken from heavy duty pallets.
Jack stands just plain suck, it doesn't matter who made them. They're rigid at the vehicle interface (usually cast steel/iron) and generally only make very little points of contact over their cast in, small area profile - not even considering the tipping hazard when extended.
Solid chunks of wood piled up like cribbing is far more safe, and in my experience, free. And as an added bonus now you have chunks of greasy wood on hand for whacking things on/with less-destructively...
A torsion spring is great because as it unwinds, the tension decreases. As the garage door transitions from 200 lbs of vertical load in the closed position to almost 0 lbs when it's mostly parallel to the ceiling, a properly sized and wound spring reduces the force in synchrony with the door position.
Wouldn't a counterweight provide insufficient force at the bottom and/or excess force at the top?
But they require space and a sturdy housing. Springs are as compact as you can get.
There are also some safety concerns, a cable connecting the door to the counterweight can break, and/or slip. This can result in pieces of metal flying everywhere. A broken spring typically stays contained.
Personally, I would do one of the counterweight systems for my new house.
Most of use would be just fine with a Toyota instead.
Actually I found out that now the more popular system for this kind of door there doesn't even use counterweights or springs, but an endless screw inside a rail or a linear gear.
https://ppa-rp.com.br/item/motor-de-portao-basculante-ppa-ho... max door weight = 250kg
https://ppa-rp.com.br/item/motor-de-portao-basculante-ppa-bv... max door weight = 500kg
For reference: 5.0 R$ ~= 1.0 USD 250 kg ~= 550 lbs
The "if done properly" is critical, yes, if done wrong it's incredibly dangerous, but if you understand and respect it there's minimal chance of harm.
DIYed it three times now (on different doors of course) without incident.
EMTs, who are basically doing the bulk of "saving people's lives" - are paid the lowest wages, worse than firefighters, police, and often even the dispatchers. Why? Because the market is totally saturated with former armed services folks. And in many states, assaulting a cop will get you in a fuckton of trouble, assaulting a firefighter will get you in a fair bit of trouble, but assaulting an EMT will (depending on the state) often get you...an ambulance ride, which you were probably getting anyway.
Retail workers, transportation workers, field workers...all very dangerous jobs and bottom-barrel pay. Same for people in meat processing; just look up the articles about migrant children working in meat packing plants (or don't if you have kids, because there are some incredibly horrific things happening to them.)
Then again, underwater welding and helicopter chainsaw pilot pays quite well.
So sometimes it does, but it's not correlated.
I'm with OP. You don't see mass casualties among overhead door installation crews. So, there must be a safe way to do it.
I've also installed around 6 overhead doors, and followed all safety instructions that I learned from an overhead door installer. I've never once been killed.
"Did you know you can save $27.00 if you build your own refrigerator?"
I am not dismissing DIY at all, but YouTube repair channels make it sound so easy but viewers forget making these repair videos is their job while your job is writing software. When you try it out IRL these repairs are always considerably more difficult and nobody talks about shipping cost that makes 5 minute replacements considerably more expensive.
If the cost to have it done professionally was $3000, it might be a different story.
Whereas I saw a professional do it in about 5 minutes flat on the "wind the spring and block it and then hook everything up with the door down" plan. But that can kill you if you do it wrong.
I don't know if this also applies to garage door springs, but when working with lathes for example, it is often recommended to not wear gloves. I imagine if the spring comes loose, it might slash open your hand, but with a glove, it could fully grab it and basically wind up your hand and arm around itself.
Fortunately, nobody was in or near the garage when it happened, but I'll remember it every time "garage door spring" comes up in conversation.
Every single time you opened or closed it, it sounded like a goddamn car crash going on out front. Ugh.
Here's the DIY video I followed to overhaul it when that eventually happened: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qE3GTc1h5N0
I Replaced Deadly Garage Door Torsion Springs and Lived to Tell the Tale - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28419196 - Sept 2021 (10 comments)
The problem I witness is that the people who kill or maim themselves will tell you they were confident. When people aren’t confident, their brains are responding properly to the danger and it generally leads them to making good decisions.
self-confidence is actually an absolutely key factor to safety. it doesn't mean you are blind to the dangers, rather that you recognize them, are able manage and handle risks and how to mitigate them, and above all are not fearful. you absolutely need to trust yourself.
if you are not feeling confident you are NOT going to be safe. not being confident leads to timidity, second-guessing, maybe saying "ugh. i guess that is normal?" when they shouldn't. and if something goes wrong, you can't freeze, you have to be able react appropriately.
the first time you do a mildly risky thing like this, it's wise to do more research, go a little slower and think about each step. but there's no reason that you can't approach it with a safe and confident attitude, even the first time, if you are prepared - or even better - have a trainer/mentor that can check you.
when you feel "unconfident" or fearful that is when you should walk away.
After seeing that a set of replacement springs from a big box store was under $100 and wouldn't be that hard to do myself, I figured that it would be reasonable to pay an extra $100-200 just to have it done while I was busy with other things.
One guy over the phone tried to convince me that he would need to replace the entire cable system as well and lost any interest after I told him the cables were fine and the spring had failed from fatigue in the hook section where the cable was attached.
Someone else was "dispatched" from a local-sounding number and showed up with out-of-state license plates on his van. He quoted me $800 for the repair. I tried not to be a jerk and told him thanks, but I'll be looking around some more. He then dropped the price to $400, saying he'd do the job for that if he could replace only one spring. After another thanks, but no thanks he became aggressive and said that was a special one-time price that ended when he left my driveway. He later texted me with a $200 dollar price, but by then I had already arranged for someone to do a full conversion to a torsion system for about $500.
Once every 3-7 years replacement at ~US$150-350 YMMV is honestly not that much money saved vs the risk.
Again, I know they break sometimes. It should not be happening every few years.
(But if/when it does, take my money. I'll replace my car's brakes and wire a new ceiling fan but I'm not touching that spring for love nor money.)
[0] https://www.novoferm.nl/producten/garagedeuren/kanteldeuren/
Edit: Okay, that [0] doesn't look too violent.
Unless you're in a convertible.
Why is 2013 missing?
It was around $700 at the time and the installer installed two springs (side by side) to handle a failure event with one of them.
It has a built-in winder that uses a power drill.
There are tools that will attach to the traditional winders and you can use a power drill, those tools are $800, which is a bit hard to swallow.
Given the choice, I'd opt for it since it is easier to fine tune, but I'm not convinced it's safer than the traditional way. You still have to secure the door against unintentional movement and ensure everything is assembled correctly before tensioning.
The only "safety" feature I see is it eliminates the appeal to use an inadequate tool to tension the spring, so resist the urge to use a flimsy old screwdriver and you'll probably have similar risk either way.
I've worked on all sorts of things, but I don't want to risk my health that recklessly.
This is the one thing he wouldn't touch.
Me too.
Nothing wrong with doing things yourself, but make sure you're following basic safety standards and procedures. And don't do stupid hacks cause the actual tools are expensive. This is how you get injured or killed.
TLDR treat dangerous things with respect and you vastly increase your odds. Be it a firearm or a chemical or a fast spinning lathe.....danger can be lurking anuwhere and when you recognise it a d stop and develop a aproach to mitigate risks.....you can help elimate stupid mistakes that could really cost you.
TLDR its better to have annoyingly boring procedures than just wing it and hope it goes well.
Haha, also reminds me of how *"The Actions In This Video Are Performed by Professionals" became completely meaningless, because most of the time they very obviously aren't.
I know I'm kind of missing the point/creative intent of this essay, and I appreciate the non-linear full-of-detours style in other genres. For example I'm a huge fan of Norm MacDonald whose long, impossible-to-follow stories would often drive unaware audiences and talkshow hosts crazy. But for technical things I personally find the style super annoying and feeling like the author is trying to flex on how much engineering, business, and trivia knowledge he has in many adjacent topics.
I actually get anxiety thinking about getting trapped at a bar or party interacting with somebody who talks like this :-)
Curious how other readers feel about this, especially those who have the exact opposite reaction!
Probably down to personal taste, but I would happily take a thousand of these websites with strange, esoteric folk sharing knowledge in unconventional ways than another subreddit that's 70% non-sequiturs by volume, or a Stack Exchange thread that's just the same quesiton asked 400 times in broken english.
I used to often meet this exact type of engineer early in my career as an enterprise data storage consultant in the 90s and early 2000s. I would say the most common "character" I would run into at a customer site was "UNIX libertarian hippie guy" who would love to weave politics, especially about privacy, freedom of speech, government overreach, new world order, esoteric obsessive hobbies, etc into technical discussions.
I feel like the typical tech worker today either has very different socio-political views, or keeps their politics out of our workplace interactions.
I wonder what the net impact of an article like this is:
* How much money is saved by garage door owners?
* How much money is lost by professionals?
* How many people are injured/killed because this article made them think this was doable at acceptable risk, when they otherwise wouldn't have attempted it?
* How many people would've attempted it anyway, and would've been injured, but this article helped them not to be injured?
Modern bonus:
* How many people are injured because a YouTube/TikTok/etc. DIY influencer is informed by this article, makes a YouTube video that muddies the information, and people are inspired by the influencer video to attempt it?
After pulling the vice grips off, the door shot up with such force that it knocked the ladder over, causing a broken collar bone in the process.
Geocities was really dying by 2002. It had been bought by Yahoo! a few years previously, and they were intent on driving it into the ground.
Video distribution was indeed fairly rare, but Flash sites were very widespread, sometimes including video, but more often vector animations.
The Mavica was still around in 2002, although mostly in CD-R form. But cameras taking flash memory cards were also around, using a wild mix of CompactFlash, SmartMedia, Memory Stick, xD-Picture Card and MMC. SD had just been invented, and a year or so later I had my own cheap digital camera that took SD cards.
Recently i had all the central heating connections in my house replaced by smart thermostats. I could have done that myself given enough time, but i knew the old current system was from around 1970/1980 and i would face major problems. So i hired some guy to do it for me. Agreed upon a fixed price as well. It took him around 11 hours to get everything working.
[0] https://veterangaragedoor.com/faq/how-much-do-garage-doors-w...
[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/Heavy_Du...
[2] https://engineering.stackexchange.com/questions/8692/why-are...
It is very common in some other countries.
They seem far safer, longer lasting, and cheaper and easier to repair than springs, but are more expensive to install, take up more space, and probably cost more all in all compared to springs.
I found this that also goes into it:
https://engineering.stackexchange.com/questions/8692/why-are...
Why are we still using passive, reliable mechanisms to reduce the force needed to move heavy objects?
I even found a supposedly scary warning video of a spring deliberately let go, and it's... underwhelmingly tame: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrUIN6hClB4
Just remember to keep your hands away from it, which is easy to do with long winding rods that should be grasped at the ends for best leverage anyway.
Pay someone else who learned the simple steps to do the simple work and save yourself the time for more productive activities, but stop congratulating yourself on “avoiding a disaster” - too much drama for the task at hand here.
If you know more than others, that's great, but in that case please share some of what you know, so the rest of us can learn: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
Putdowns don't help anybody, and make less interesting reading.
What's not OK is insisting broadly to man up and do it yourself, stop being helpless, etc. You could encourage an innocent person to severely injure themselves. It's pointless and irresponsible.
1. The springs lift the door from the bottom, and from each side, which puts less load on the door itself as compared to if the entire weight were being lifted from the top middle every time.
2. The motors can be smaller, quieter and use less power
3. In case of power failure, the door is much more functional and safer the less apparently weight it has.
Also the springs themselves are very unlikely to be dangerous (as long as you don't try to replace them yourself), because he said they almost always break when the door is at the closed state, because that is when they are under the most tension. Therefore on the whole, the springs in practice offer no practical safety risk, while greatly increasing the safety of the door in it's normal operation while also reducing wear and tear on the door. They also allow people to have heavier types of doors if they want them.
That might be acceptable day-to-day, but, if opening the door is what's required to escape, say, a house fire, it's very much not acceptable.
https://motherfuckingwebsite.com
This dude is old school.
That is about as true as you being liable for a mechanic hurting themselves working on your car or a repairman falling off the roof fixing your HVAC in that it's not true at all.
Now, if a mechanic is working on my car and my garage door spring snaps and injures them then yes, I would be liable.
Separately, being liable for something happening to someone else and that same thing happening to me are not equivalent. Macabre as it is, I'd rather pay out (or have my insurance pay) the lawsuit for a professional hired for a particular task ending up grievously injured than end up grievously injured myself. In a lot of cases, I'd doubt you'd even be financially liable. From a moral standpoint there's still some culpability, but in the case of garage springs I think your obligation is more to stress to the professional that you're happy for them to take their time and you're willing to pay accordingly than it is to subject yourself to the risk instead. From a societal standpoint, a few repairpeople building up expertise at a particular task is safer than everyone doing it individually.
Averagely experienced woodworkers loose fingers most often.
When you are new to something you are super careful. When you are veteran you made or seen somebody make all mistakes already.
When you are averagely experienced it's the most likely time for your confidence to exceed your capability.
Don't hire that person. Hire someone with insurance. You as homeowner are really unlikely to incur any liability as long as you are not substantially directing their work. Let them be the expert doing their job.
There are times to make repairs yourself - such as when you think you can do a better / more nuanced job than a "pro" or when acquiring the skill can pay dividends over a long period (eg once you learn to change your oil and rotate your tires, you will have the option to never pay for it.)
Taking on the injury instead of letting a pro handle is is explicitly NOT the reason to DIY! Presumably the pro has done that thing many times and survived, and even if he fucks up that's the risk of his job.
I was sitting in the family room. Big slam sound. I go out and check the garage and one of the springs had broke.
It is really not a big deal to switch them out.
My take away is that it's to dangerous to do.
