A Garage Door Stuck Halfway Needs Attention

If your garage door is hanging at an awkward angle or refuses to move despite the motor running, you likely have a snapped or derailed cable that requires professional service. Attempting to force the door open or closed in this state can cause damage to the tracks and poses a safety risk to anyone nearby. Contact our team to secure the door and schedule a repair.

A broken cable transfers the immense weight of the door entirely to one side, potentially bending the tracks or causing the door to free-fall. In Lake Arrowhead, where garage doors often serve as the primary entry point, losing this functionality is a significant disruption. Good Golly Garage Doors provides the technical expertise required to safely reset the tension and replace compromised cabling hardware:

• Get reliable professional cable repair services to restore access to your garage.
• Ensure safety and durability with high-quality, galvanized aircraft-quality cable replacements.
• Receive a clear pricing estimate before any work begins so you understand the scope and cost of the repair.

All services are fully licensed, insured, and supported by applicable manufacturer warranties, which typically apply for about one year.

Immediate Repair Solutions: What We Offer

When a cable snaps, the priority is securing the opening. A garage door cable operates under high tension, working in tandem with the springs to lift doors that can weigh several hundred pounds. When one cable fails, the remaining cable struggles to hold the weight, leading to a door that looks “cocked” or crooked in the opening. We provide a repair scope designed to address not just the broken component, but the entire counterbalance system.

Our service begins with a safety lockdown. Before we touch a single bolt, we clamp the door to the track to prevent it from crashing down or springing up unexpectedly. This is a critical step that many untrained individuals overlook, leading to injury. Once the environment is safe, we proceed with the specific repair required for your door type, whether it utilizes a torsion spring setup, common in newer homes, or an extension spring setup.

We do not simply patch the problem. Our technicians arrive prepared with the appropriate lengths and gauges of high-strand steel cables. We match the cable thickness to the weight of your specific door. Using a cable that is too thin for a heavy, insulated wood door will only lead to another break in the near future. Conversely, using the wrong drum fitting can cause cables to spool unevenly. We ensure every component is rated for the specific load requirements of your entryway.

Residents in Lake Arrowhead often deal with heavier, insulated doors due to the climate. These heavier doors place higher stress on lifting cables. We offer upgraded, high-cycle cables designed to withstand the additional tension and the frequent temperature fluctuations found in mountain environments. This service includes a full inspection of the bottom brackets, drums, and pulleys to ensure the new cables have a solid foundation for operation.

Our Cable Repair Process: From Assessment to Completion

Replacing a garage door cable is a precise mechanical process that requires manipulating the door’s tension system. Because the cables are attached to the bottom brackets, which are under extreme tension from the springs, this is not a simple handyman task. Our certified technicians follow a rigorous protocol to ensure the repair is performed safely and correctly:

• Tension Release: The first technical step involves releasing the tension from the torsion springs. This is the most dangerous part of the job. We insert winding bars into the spring cone to control the unwinding process. If the tension is not released, removing the bottom bracket to access the cable loop can cause the bracket to shoot off the wall with severe force. We meticulously unwind the springs to render the lift mechanism neutral.
• Cable Removal and Inspection: With the tension neutralized, we remove the frayed or snapped cable from the drum assembly at the top and the bracket at the bottom. At this stage, we also inspect the condition of the cable drums. If the grooves in the drum are worn or chipped, the new cable will not spool correctly, leading to fraying. We clean the drums and check the bearings on the torsion tube to ensure smooth rotation.
• Installation of New Cables: We invariably replace cables in pairs. Even if only one cable has snapped, the other is likely under significant fatigue and has stretched over time. Installing one new cable and keeping an old one results in uneven lifting, as the older cable will be slightly longer due to stretching. We thread the new, high-strength cables onto the drums, secure them to the bottom brackets, and ensure they are seated perfectly in the drum grooves.
• Re-tensioning and Balancing: Once the hardware is in place, we wind the springs back to the correct tension settings. This requires calculating the proper number of turns based on the door’s height and weight. After re-tensioning, we test the door manually. A properly balanced door should sit halfway open without falling or shooting up. We adjust the tension incrementally until this balance is achieved.
• Final Safety Check and Lubrication: The final step involves checking the door’s travel limits with the opener. We ensure the motor knows exactly where to stop so it doesn’t pull the cables too tight or leave them too loose. We lubricate the springs, rollers, and hinges to reduce friction, ensuring the new cables operate smoothly without snagging.

Deciding Between Repair and Replacement: A Quick Guide

Homeowners often ask if a cable can be repaired rather than replaced. In the vast majority of cases, replacement is the only safe option. Garage door cables are made of braided steel strands. Once these strands begin to fray or snap, the structural integrity of the cable is compromised. There is no way to splice or tie a broken garage door cable back together while maintaining its load-bearing capacity:

• Scenario: The Cable Slipped off the Drum: If the cable is physically intact but has come loose from the drum, it might be possible to reset it without replacement. This usually happens when the door is closed on an obstruction, causing slack in the line. However, we must inspect the cable for kinks. If the cable was kinked when it slipped, it creates a weak point that will eventually break. In this case, replacement is recommended.
• Scenario: Fraying or Corrosion: If you look closely at your cables and see hairy metal wires sticking out, the cable is fraying. This is a sign of failure risk. Similarly, if you see rust, the metal has weakened. In Lake Arrowhead, moisture and oxidation can accelerate this degradation. Replacing these cables before they snap helps prevent situations such as a trapped vehicle or a fallen door.
• Scenario: Uneven Door Movement: Sometimes the cables have not snapped, but they have stretched unevenly. If your door hits the floor on one side but leaves a gap on the other, the cables are no longer synchronized. While we can sometimes adjust the drum to compensate, severely stretched cables have lost their elasticity and tensile strength. Replacement restores the factory-level balance to the door.
• Scenario: Bottom Bracket Failure: Sometimes the issue is not the cable itself, but the connection point. If the bottom bracket is rusted or damaged, the cable loop is at risk of slipping off. In these instances, we replace both the bracket and the cable to ensure a secure connection.

Why Choose Us: Our Commitments to Quality and Safety

When you hire a professional service to handle your garage door cabling, you are paying for the assurance that one of the heaviest moving components in your home will operate safely. We do not cut corners with cheap hardware. The cables we install are rated for high-tensile loads, utilizing aircraft-grade steel that resists stretching and snapping better than standard builder-grade materials:

• Precision Winding and Calibration: The difference between a smooth door and a noisy, jerky one often comes down to the calibration of the cables and springs. Our technicians use professional winding bars and tension gauges to dial in the torque required for your specific door weight. This precision reduces wear on your opener motor and ensures the door opens easily, even manually during a power outage.
• Comprehensive System Evaluation: We never look at cables in isolation. A snapped cable is often a symptom of another issue, such as a seized bearing or a bad roller. Good Golly Garage Doors technicians perform a multi-point inspection with every cable repair. We check the condition of the pulleys, the alignment of the vertical tracks, and the balance of the torsion tube. This approach helps support long-term performance and reliability.
• Licensed and Trained Technicians: Garage door repair is demanding work. Our team undergoes training to handle high-tension systems safely. We carry the necessary insurance to protect your property during the repair process. You can trust that the technician arriving at your home has the skills and the tools to handle complex cable configurations, including high-lift tracks and custom wood doors often found in mountain architecture.

Inventory of Specialized Parts: We understand that limited access to your garage can be inconvenient. We maintain access to a range of cable lengths, drums for different lift types, and heavy-duty bottom brackets, which allows many repairs to be completed without unnecessary delays.

Preventing a Garage Door Cable Failure

If your garage door cables are frayed, loose, or broken, it is best to address the issue before the door fails completely. Ongoing operation of a compromised system increases the risk of property damage and injury. Contact us to schedule a professional assessment and keep your garage door operating safely.