Garage door spring replacement project

In September torsion springs on my garage door broke and I had a dilemma of hiring a contractor or fixing it myself. After having three different contractors bid between $400 to $900 for the project ($400 for basic replacement and $900 for complete overhaul of the door), I decided to do it myself.

In addition to replacing torsion springs, I decided to do a complete overhaul of my garage door system and replaced cables, bearing, springs and all 10 rollers with these high quality ones from Amazon:

 Having spent a couple of hours researching the process of replacing the torsion springs, I was very aware how DANGEROUS this process could be if not done properly. I was also having a really hard time finding appropriate torsion springs. This is when I found this AWESOME web site where I ordered two of my new springs, two new cables and new bearing for the torsion rod. This website has lots of instructional videos and very good customer service - I called them three times with questions and they quickly answered all of them! If you ever are going to replace your garage hardware - use this site: http://ddmgaragedoors.com/index.php. Here are instructional videos that they share freely with everyone - these are by far the best videos on the internet about replacing torsion springs: http://ddmgaragedoors.com/diy-instructions.


When you order your new springs, you need to make very careful measurements - the site above explains all of it. Here is what I measured on my setup - I sent a link to the DDM Garage Door folks and they made sure I ordered correct hardware:

This project took me about 10 hours total:

• 2 hours of researching the technical details and watching videos
• 1 hour to measure everything (twice)
• 2 hours shopping for the right parts (I wish I knew about DDM Garage Doors right away)
• 2 hours installing and adjusting springs
• 2 hours to install and adjust cables
• 1 hour to replace rollers
• 15 minutes to lubricate everything
• 10 min to write this blog.

I spent about $150 on parts - all highest quality you can possibly buy on the market. This means I saved about $750 compared to the $900 price for the door overhaul proposed by one of the contractors. This comes to about $75 per hour spent. The joy I had from doing it myself - priceless :-). The parts and work quality - I bet it is the same or likely higher than what I would get from a contractor.

The reason I wanted to write this blog is to share my outstanding experience with the DDM Garage Doors as the provider of parts and their excellent customer service.

The other big reason is to warn about the high danger of replacing torsion springs. This project is not for the faint of heart. It can kill you if not done right. However once you know the process and follow it, it is very safe to do and is not complicated at all. But you MUST DO IT CORRECTLY!!! Watch instruction videos and hire contractor if you are not sure you can do it right.

Sprint Triathlon in North Park, Pittsburgh (Janney and YMCA - 2014)

On August 10, 2014 I raced Sprint Triathlon in North Park. This is only few minutes from my home and back in 2011 this was my first ever triathlon race (photos here). In 2013 I took first place in my age group (race report), so in this race I was defending my title sort of speak.

This year I won again in my 40-44 age group (19 participants) and went faster than the all competitors from age group 0 to 44, except for the overall competitors. I was 9th overall out of 233 competitors. The official results can be found here: http://www.runhigh.com/2014RESULTS/R081014AC.html.

Here is the comparison of 2014 results to 2013 and 2011 races:

	2011	2013	2014
Swim (700 yards)	00:18:21	00:13:48	00:14:29
Bike (12.5 miles)	00:33:17	00:32:59	00:32:46
Run (3.1 miles)	00:23:04	00:21:42	00:22:01
Total	01:14:42	01:08:29	01:09:16

I am happy with the result, however swim and run are slower compared to 2013 - not really sure why is that so. I sure hope this is because conditions were different and not because I got slower :-).

As always - major thing that needs improvement is the control of pre-race anxiety. I could not get any sleep the night before the race. I may have slept for about 30 minutes total - same as last year...