Garage Door Cable Repair in Spokane
If one side of your door is sitting lower than the other and a steel cable is hanging loose, that cable is what was holding the door level.
In Spokane, garage door cable replacement typically costs $160-260 including parts and labour, and takes 45-60 minutes.
Lift cables are replaced in pairs, because a cable that snapped and its opposite twin have carried identical load for identical time.
A frayed cable is one of the few garage door faults you can catch before it fails, by looking for broken wire strands near the bottom bracket.
What the cables actually do
The torsion spring stores the energy, but it is the two steel cables running from the bottom of the door up to drums on the spring shaft that transfer that energy to the door. When one lets go, that corner of the door has nothing holding it, so it drops while the other side stays put - which is why the symptom is a crooked door rather than a stuck one.
Catching it before it snaps
Cables give warning, which springs generally do not. Look at the bottom two feet of each cable, where it attaches to the bracket at the base of the door. Individual wire strands that have broken and are standing out from the twist mean the cable is on its way out. Replacing it at that stage is the same $160-260 job, but without the crooked door, the bent track and the possible off-track repair on top.
The bottom of the cable is also where Spokane weather does its work. Snow gets pushed inside the door, melts, and sits at the base of the opening where the cable anchors, and that repeated wet-dry cycle rusts cables from the bottom up.
Why both cables get replaced
The two cables were installed on the same day and have lifted the same door the same number of times. If one has reached the end of its life, the other is within months of doing the same. Replacing the pair costs marginally more in parts and nothing extra in labour, because the technician is already there with the door secured.
Common questions
Is a snapped cable dangerous?
The cable itself is not under tension once it has broken, but the door it was holding is. A door hanging on one cable can swing or drop when disturbed, so leave it alone rather than trying to level it.
Can a cable be repaired rather than replaced?
No. Steel aircraft cable cannot be spliced back to its rated strength, and a repaired cable would fail again at the join. Replacement is the only correct fix.
Did the cable break because the spring broke?
It can work either way. A snapping spring can cause the cable to unwind off the drum, and a broken cable can leave the spring unbalanced. A technician should check both before finishing, and you should ask whether they did.