A torsion spring sits on a shaft above the door and holds enough stored tension to counterbalance a door that weighs well over a hundred kilos. That tension is exactly what lets the opener lift a door that heavy with a motor barely bigger than a drill - and it is exactly what makes the spring dangerous to release incorrectly. If you heard a loud bang like a gunshot from the garage, that was the spring letting go. Do not pull the emergency release cord and do not attempt to lift the door yourself - call us and stay clear of it.
Springs are rated in cycles, not years - a standard torsion spring is built for roughly ten thousand open-close cycles, which sounds like a lot until a busy family door counts that as a handful of years, not decades. We replace both springs at once even when only one has broken, because the second spring on the same door is the same age and has absorbed the same number of cycles - it is not far behind.
The emergency release is safe to use with the door fully closed, to disconnect the opener for a manual close during a power outage. It is dangerous to use while the door is open and a spring has already failed, since nothing is left holding that weight up - if the door is open and will not move, leave the release alone and call us instead.
