this post was submitted on 11 May 2026
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me_irl
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Dryer is often tenant owned anyway. Spring is cheap if you're brave. Water heater you can get for the difference in this posts's rent and mortgage.
Doesn't muddy the waters a bit.
What a beautiful epitaph
I don't recommend everyone do it but it's not rocket science. Follow proceedure and respect the danger. Most of you operate multi tonne motor vehicles, you can do it.
Isn't it the second most common method of losing fingers, right after table saws?
Sure, but I don't stand on a ladder, stick a screwdriver into the flywheel, and then tell my friend to fire it up.
I understand that is exaggerated and oversimplified, but having an old garage door spring miss my face by inches because it failed as I walked below it was a terrifying experience. In a car, the car is a crumple zone. In a garage door spring, your skull is the crumple zone (assuming that you're interacting with it in such a way. I also tend to not put my face in front of cars that are prepared to accelerate.)
Oh yes. Big springs are dangerous, respect them or get sprung.
My poor poor anaconda...
When I was younger we had one of the older-style "2 big springs" doors and needed to replace the springs. The new ones were a bit shorter, so we had to close the doors a little harder. No problem.
About 20 minutes later there was a sound like an explosion in the garage. One of the new springs broke where the hook went into the door from the strain of being stretched so tight, and it shot across the room and was sticking out of the man-door on the other side of the garage.
Don't fuck with garage springs.
I had my grandparents' house inspected before buying it, and the inspector said that a couple of the springs (same type) were not installed correctly; that the extra cable coming from the door to the track was supposed to be routed through the spring to hold it in place in case there was a failure. The garage doors were already concerning me, so I hired a garage door company to take a look, and update the springs.
The technician told me that an inspector pointing that out is really strange, because that's an incredibly niche detail for an inspector to know. The tech looks at the spring, checks out the garage door, etc. All the while, I'm standing under the track. The tech was about to open the garage door, and said, "hey, take a few steps back. No reason to risk standing under that, in case it fails." I took three steps back, and then there was a loud bang, and the spring suddenly whipped across in front of me, bounced back once, and then lazily swung back and forth in front of me.
I still sometimes panic walking under my garage door tracks.
That's not at all a niche detail. An inspector who fails to call that out is completely incompetent.
I'm glad to know that! I've only inspected and purchased my grandparents' home, and I hope to live here the rest of my life, so I don't really know what to expect from inspectors. I only know what I've been told.
I know exactly how to replace a garage spring, I simply refuse to do it.