I was on Chatham Street in Steveston last October — one of those old 1940s singles near the docks where the garages still have the original wood-frame surrounds — and the homeowner had called me because the door "sounded a bit off." Not broken. Just off. He'd noticed it for maybe two weeks.

I asked him to do the test I'm about to describe. He did it. He stepped back. He said "oh."

The spring failed three days later. He didn't get hurt because he was at work when it went. The door slammed down on his Mazda3 instead.

Here's what I want you to do before the first cold snap every year. It takes two seconds. It needs no tools. It's the difference between a $325 spring job and a $1,800 emergency call plus body work.

The two-second test

Stand inside your garage with the door closed and the opener disengaged. (If you don't know how to disengage your opener, you can either skip that step for now and just look — or read post 17 first.)

Look at the spring above the door, or at the springs on either side of the track if it's an older extension-spring setup.

You're looking for one thing: is there a visible gap in the coil?

That's it. That's the whole test.

A healthy spring is a tight, continuous coil — like a stretched-out Slinky that someone has pushed back together. The coils touch. They're under tension and they want to stay tight.

A failing or failed spring has a visible gap. Usually about 5 to 15 cm. Sometimes the spring is in two clean pieces. Sometimes one of the ends has popped off the cone. If you can see daylight through the coil where there shouldn't be daylight, the spring is gone.

Why this matters more in Richmond than most places

Steel does not like Richmond. Salt off the Strait gets carried inland on the wind. Humidity sits around 75–80% for most of the year. The temperature swings of a fall morning — 4°C at sunrise, 14°C by noon — make steel expand and contract daily.

A standard 10,000-cycle spring rated for a dry climate in Phoenix might give you 12 years. Here, in a Steveston garage 400 metres from the dyke, I've replaced 6-year-old springs that looked 15 years old. The corrosion eats the coil from the surface inward. Once it pits, the failure point arrives early.

This is why the two-second test matters here more than it does inland. Inspect every fall. Before October ends.

Cost reality check (2026, Lower Mainland CAD) - Catching a failing spring early — replace the pair on a planned service visit: $295–$425 - Spring fails when you're trying to leave for work: same-day emergency repair, $425–$625 - Spring fails when door is open, falls and bends panels: panel replacement on top, add $450–$1,200 per panel, sometimes the whole door - Spring fails when car is half-out: bodywork, add anything from $800 to "your deductible"

The two-second test costs zero.

The full pre-winter walk-around

If you've got 30 seconds instead of two, here's the rest.

1. Cables. Look at the steel cables that run from the bottom of the door up to the spring assembly (torsion) or up to the pulleys (extension). They should be smooth and shiny grey. If you see fraying — little wires sticking out like a worn-out shoelace — that cable is going to snap. 7×19 aircraft cable is the residential standard. Snap one and the door tilts hard to one side. Snap one with the door up and it can come down on your foot.

2. Rollers. The wheels that ride in the track on either side of each panel. The cheap white nylon rollers that came with most builder-grade doors from the '90s and early 2000s wear out at around year 10. You'll hear them before you see them — a kind of dry grinding when the door moves. Look at the wheel. Is it round, or has it gone flat on one side? Flat-spotted rollers cost the opener motor about 30% extra power on every cycle.

3. Hinges and bolts. Run your eye down the seam between each panel. Are any of the hinges loose? Any bolts missing? In an old Burkeville garage I once saw a door held together by one hinge and the laws of physics.

4. Bottom seal. The rubber strip on the very bottom of the door. Is it cracked, split, chewed, or compressed flat? In Richmond's wet, that strip is the only thing keeping water and mice out. (Yes, mice. More on that in the weather stripping post.)

5. Photo eyes. The two little sensors about 15 cm off the ground on either side of the door opening. Are they clean? Aligned? Lit up steady green or amber when the door is closed?

What good looks like

A spring with no gap. Cables shiny and intact. Rollers round and quiet. Hinges tight. Seal flexible. Photo eyes lit and clean.

That's a door that will get through a Richmond winter.

What "I'm not sure" looks like

If you're squinting at the spring trying to figure out if that's a gap or just a shadow — it's a gap. Springs don't develop ambiguous gaps. Either the coils are touching or they aren't.

If you're not sure about the cable, look at it in good light. Run a paper towel along it. If the towel snags, the cable is fraying.

If you're not sure about the rollers, watch the door go up and down. Anything that wobbles, scrapes, or grinds is telling you it's worn.

DANGER Do not — under any circumstances — touch a torsion spring with a tool, screwdriver, or anything else. Do not try to "adjust" it. Do not loosen the set screws on the winding cones. A standard residential torsion spring stores roughly 200–400 newton-metres of energy when fully wound. That's enough to break bones, take fingers off, and put a winding bar through drywall on the other side of the garage. I've seen it. I've also seen photos in trade publications I won't link to because I don't want them in your head.

Look. Don't touch.

What I want you to actually do this fall

Pick a Saturday in October. Make a coffee. Walk into the garage. Stand inside with the door closed. Look at the spring for two seconds.

If it's intact, you're done. Drink the coffee.

If it isn't, call somebody before the next windstorm. Spring jobs scheduled three days out cost the same as spring jobs scheduled three weeks out. Spring jobs at 4 p.m. on a Friday in November when your wife needs the car cost more.

That's the post.

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