If your garage door stopped functioning due to broken springs, this isn't the time to apply your do-it-yourself skills. This repair is highly technical and comes with extreme safety concerns. Make sure you're calling on a professional right away. While waiting, there are a number of things you want to remember in order to minimize the risk of injury and further damage to your door; here are just some of them.

Manually Opening The Door

If your garage door springs broke just before you were about to head out to work, the best option would be to simply open the door manually, right? The answer is no. As inconvenient as it might be, it's actually best to not open your door – even if you have an extra pair of hands to help you. Opening the door without a properly functioning spring is extremely hard given the weight of the door.

Should the door slip or your strength give out, the door will come crashing down on you. This won't just increase the risk of an injury, but the force can also cause damage to the door, only furthering your repair needs. In extreme cases, the force from the door slamming may even damage the tracks, potentially causing the door to fall on your car.

Using An Electric Opener

Although you have a fancy, electric opener installed to help open and close your garage door, the real story is that this system isn't doing quite as much work as you think. Some people assume that even with a broken spring, the electric opener will be powerful enough to operate the door. When it comes to operating a garage door, much of the efforts falls on the springs.

In fact, when the springs are damaged, trying to operate the electric opener will only cause its motor to burn out because it is not designed to support the weight of the door, on its own. A failed door opener system can easily increase your repair cost by $200 or more. In order to avoid escalating damage to your opener system and only causing costlier repairs, don't try to use your opener to operate the door until the springs have been repaired.

If you're dealing with a failed door spring, the best course of action is to avoid your garage door until the repair specialist has completed the repair. Although it might be inconvenient, risking your safety and causing further damage to your simply isn't worth it. For more information, visit sites like http://www.shankdoor.com.