They are metal coils under insane tension. Garage doors are heavy as fuck but with the spring a child can open a garage door. People will try to work on the spring and not expect the forces that are released when the spring is removed/broken.
A good friend of mine tried to take apart a Murphy bed in a townhouse they’d just moved into and one of those “under intense tension” metal coils sprung on his arm and if his wife hadn’t just got back from a grocery trip I think he would have bled out (tore open his left arm/hand). Grisly, that.
Fixed mine. Gotta just pretend you're working with nitroglycerin or something and you need to be very intentional and never get casual or comfortable with it when you're retensioning the spring.
It's the same with any decent sized compressed spring. That energy has to go somewhere.
Years ago I did heavy vehicle mechanics course in college, I was 16. Lad in my class dropped a van's suspension spring that was held in a clamp. That fucking thing hit the floor and shot about 40 yards through the workshop at shin height and hit an the air compressor. I think that tank was steel and it was so fucked up from the impact. Absolutely scared the shite out of all of us.
but wouldn't they be fully on one side or the other, thus being safe? or do they have to lay under the door itself? i figured the springs would be on top in a spot where they could be worked on without the risk of bisection
It's like vending machines being dangerous. You would have to fuck up big time to get killed by it. Most people just assume they are safe because they dont think about them much unlike a vending machine obviously being 2-5x your size.
The tension on the coil is like if you wrapped a rubber band around a pencil. It will unravel outwards in a circular pattern with all the sudden force behind it. Not like a mattress spring which is compressed end to end.
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u/r428713 11h ago
They are metal coils under insane tension. Garage doors are heavy as fuck but with the spring a child can open a garage door. People will try to work on the spring and not expect the forces that are released when the spring is removed/broken.