How Long It Takes
A typical house in Wade Hampton went up around 1973, which means a lot of these garages have never had the spring swapped out even once. Torsion springs are rated for a number of open-close cycles, not years, but a spring installed when the house was built has usually been through enough winters and enough door openings to be well past its working life even if it looks fine sitting there. We drive out from Greer, about 7 miles, and a straightforward torsion spring replacement on a standard double door runs under two hours once we're on site. If the drums, bearing plates, or cables are also original and worn, that adds time, because we're not going to put a new spring on hardware that's going to tear it up again in a year.
The DIY Question
Don't. A wound torsion spring holds enough stored energy to break a wrist or worse, and the winding bars and tension measurements aren't something to guess at on a door you've never opened up before. On a house from the early 1970s, there's an added wrinkle: the drums, shaft, and end bearing plates are often original too, and they don't always match what's sold in stores today. Pulling the wrong size spring off a shelf and forcing it onto old hardware is how people strip a shaft or crack a bracket. If you want to do something yourself, check that the door is binding or sticking in the track first - sometimes what looks like a spring problem is just a dry roller, and that one's safe to lube yourself.
The Cost of This Job
We don't have a number to quote here without seeing the door - spring size depends on door weight, and weight depends on whether it's steel, insulated, or an older solid panel type common to houses from this era. What we can tell you is what drives the price up: a seized torsion drum, a bent shaft, or cables that fray when we test them, all of which show up more often on hardware that's been sitting under tension since the house was built. We give the number after we've looked at your specific door, not before, because quoting blind on 50-year-old hardware is how companies lowball and then surprise you.
