garage door open/close counter

Had a torsion spring break on my overhead door.  It turns out they have a cycle life, and apparently mine was exceeded.  I suppose I could use home automation to keep track of the cycle count when I install a new one.  On the other hand, there's something to be said for simplicity, and just having a mechanical counter that increments by one after each open-close cycle.  Either way, next time I'll know to replace before the failure occurs.

What is the cycle count expectancy of said torsion spring?

Googling...
 

Garage door springs are rated with an industry standard of 10,000 cycles from the factory. Every time your garage door opens and closes counts as one cycle.

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Old home of 30 years one spring broke after about 15 years.  Cars were kept in garage and used ever day.
 
Here in the last 15 years one garage door spring broke (of 4) about 8 years ago (after about 6 years of use). 
 
Garage doors are/were made from an insulated composite with thin metal outsides. 
 
I asked the garage door repair person same question relating to a time frame / use of a garage door spring failure.
 
He said it was hard to be able to predict when a spring would go. (mentioned to me that he had been doing repairs for about 25 years).
 
The springs are very reasonably priced.  Its the labor of installing them which is a PITA (brother in law has done his own garage door spring replacement).
 
The above mentioned I purchased a tiny digital door counter in the 1980's for commercial use.  Very reasonably priced at the time and it worked just fine. I have sensors today on the garage doors and could probably keep track of the number of times it opens and closes but I do not care to these days.

Maybe I'm an oddball, but why would you want to replace a wear item that may have a lifespan that could double the cyclic use rate of the spring itself just for the sake of replacing it within it's advertised duty cycle? Just because it states that (sic) 250K cycles doesn't mean that you couldn't get double that out of the unit safely.
 
Not going to be a huge disaster when the torsion spring breaks compared to the extension style units...I've seen those basically nuke the side of a vehicle.
 
What's the cost of the spring and tensioning it up compared to what happens when it breaks?

I'll be honest, you won't fine me going through the effort required to set something like this up... I'll just replace it when it breaks.

drvnbysound said:

What is the cycle count expectancy of said torsion spring?

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We had one break two years ago and decided to replace the door and opener.  The salespeople were careful to quote the expected cycle count on the springs.  I believe the basic ones were 10,000 cycles and more expensive, higher duty count springs were available.  
 
BTW, replacing the springs yourself is risky.  Specialized tools are needed to pre-load the tension in the springs.  There is a serious amount of energy stored in each.  If something goes wrong, it could kill you.  I think this is a job for an experienced professional installer.
 
Craig

It's a hassle to replace *after* it breaks, unless you happen to have a spare already on hand. Where I live, it seems that the only places that sell torsion springs are the garage door installers, and even their storefront parts departments charge more than double, with me going there, than what amazon charges to deliver it to my door.  So... I ordered from Amazon.
 
Typical cycle life is 10,000.  After looking into it, I found that I could buy a replacement with a much higher cycle life (even upwards of 100,000 cycles).  Of course, repair people never offer you those, or even mention their existence.

You can also buy the spring yourself and then have a garage door repair person install it.  It is against the garage door installer hippocratic oath to ever install a spring that lasts very long time. It would not be very advantageous to their business.

NeverDie said:

It's a hassle to replace *after* it breaks, unless you happen to have a spare already on hand. Where I live, it seems that the only places that sell torsion springs are the garage door installers, and even their storefront parts departments charge more than double, with me going there, than what amazon charges to deliver it to my door.  So... I ordered from Amazon.
 
Typical cycle life is 10,000.  After looking into it, I found that I could buy a replacement with a much higher cycle life (even upwards of 100,000 cycles).  Of course, repair people never offer you those, or even mention their existence.

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Not necessarily. We don't even park in our garage, so it wouldn't be that big of a deal for us to go without using the opener for a week
 
I have had some issues in the past with my opener closing the garage door and have pulled the release a few times and manually closed it - that wasn't too difficult either.

pvrfan said:

BTW, replacing the springs yourself is risky.  Specialized tools are needed to pre-load the tension in the springs.  There is a serious amount of energy stored in each.  If something goes wrong, it could kill you.  I think this is a job for an experienced professional installer.

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Specialized tool - a 3' length of 1/2" diameter steel rod from your local hardware store cut in half to make two handles.  I had to retension my springs a couple of years ago cuz the door wouldn't stay up.  Called a GD company and they never showed up.  Figured out I could do it myself.  Work carefully and you won't have a problem DIY.

I installed the new torsion spring without incident.  One tool I found useful was an 8-point 3/8" socket.  It seems to fit the set screws much better than a typical SAE socket.

Five questions remains here from the OP. 
 
1 - Are you going to count the GD open / close numbers?
2 - will you be installing a new torsion spring in the future prior to having an incident?
3 - not bother with # 1 or / and  # 2?
4 - DIY any future GD installations of torsion springs?
5 - suggest hiring a GD torsion spring replacement resource?

pete_c said:

Five questions remains here from the OP. 
 
1 - Are you going to count the GD open / close numbers?
2 - will you be installing a new torsion spring in the future prior to having an incident?
3 - not bother with # 1 or / and  # 2?
4 - DIY any future GD installations of torsion springs?
5 - suggest hiring a GD torsion spring replacement resource?

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1. As of this moment, I'm not sure.  Before finding the high duty cycle springs, that was the plan.  However, when I replaced the broken spring,I noticed the end bearings didn't look so great, and the spring bearing in the middle wasn't a bearing at all but some cheap plastic sleeve collar with obvious signs of wear.  I don't know if they'd last 90,000+ cycles.  I really doubt the center plastic "bearing" would.  So, if I can replace them with similarly high cycle count components, then I may be done once and for all and won't need to bother counting.
2,4. Yes, I have another door whose springs haven't broken.
5. http://ddmgaragedoors.com/springs/standard-torsion-springs.php

When garage door closed, torsion spring is loaded with a lot of twist force. When garage door open, the spring is released.  Never opening the garage door would not really make spring last longer in reality.  On the opposite, keeping garage door open all day could make torsion spring last longer.
 
For plastic sleeve collar, you can apply some silicon lubricant by spraying to it.  Search WD40 300014 for a silicon spray, that works great to lubricate plastic sleeve collar, plastic door and windows.  Reduced friction could make spring operate easier.

My garage has a 15 foot ceiling.  In the hopefully not too distant future (probably in the fall) I'll be migrating to a high-lift (actually, very nearly a vertical lift) for the garage doors. I hope to incorporate what I'm learning now about component longevity into that.  Based on the level of wear I saw when changing the spring, I think I'll start over with totally new parts for the torsion bar and drum assembly but re-use the door and the track.
 
I wonder what the quality brands are for parts.  Since no one here is counting the cycles, it's likely that virtually no one anywhere is counting the cycles either. Therefore, I wouldn't be surprised if  dodgy parts (especially from you know where) are being  passed off as better than they actually are.