Garage Door Cable Repair
Cable snapped, frayed, or unwound off the drum? The door is holding its weight on one side. Stop running it and call. We replace both cables and rebalance the door.
Two Cables Carry the Whole Door.
Your garage door does not hang from the opener. It hangs from two galvanized steel lift cables, one at each bottom corner, anchored to the bottom bracket and wound onto a grooved drum at the end of the torsion shaft. The spring stores the lifting force. The cables deliver it. On a standard residential door those are about an eighth of an inch of aircraft-grade strand each, and together they carry a door that weighs between 130 and 400 pounds through roughly a thousand cycles a year.
When one lets go, the spring keeps pulling on the side that still has a cable. The door climbs on that corner, drops on the other, and racks diagonally inside the track. That is the sound most people describe to us: a bang, then a door sitting crooked and refusing to move. It is also why a cable failure so often becomes an off track garage door repair by the second attempt to run it.
- Both lift cables replaced, never one
- Cables re-seated evenly on both drums
- Drum set screws torqued to the shaft flat
- Bottom brackets inspected for rust-through
- Cable drums and end bearings checked for wear
- Extension-spring safety cables installed where missing
- Balance test and opener force reset
- One-year workmanship warranty
Six Signs It Is the Cable.
One Corner Sits Low
The clearest sign there is. One side of the door stays up, the other drops, and the gap along the floor runs on a diagonal. That is a cable off the drum or a cable snapped, and it is not a track problem.
Opens a Few Inches, Then Stops
The door lifts, binds, and the opener gives up. A slack cable has jumped its groove and is now pinched between the drum and the bracket. Every extra press drives it in further.
Loose Cable Hanging
Slack cable draped beside the track means the cable came off the drum while the door was down. The strand is still intact, but the wrap is wrong and the door will rack the moment it moves.
Fraying and Rust Bloom
Broken strands sticking out like whiskers, usually in the lowest foot of cable. Orange staining on the concrete under the bottom bracket says the same thing. That cable is days or weeks from parting.
A Bang, Then Nothing
A sharp crack from a closed garage with nobody in it. A cable under a few hundred pounds of load does not fail quietly. Check whether the garage door spring is intact too, since a broken spring makes the same noise.
Scraping at the Drum
A metallic rasp from the top corner on every cycle. The cable is riding over its own wrap or against a worn drum flange, and each pass shaves strand off it.
Leave the Bottom Bracket Alone.
Do not touch the two bolts at the bottom corner of the door. That bracket is where the cable anchors, which means it carries the full pull of a wound torsion spring even with the door closed and sitting on the concrete. Homeowners loosen it every year thinking it is a door-panel bolt. It leaves the door under load, at speed, in the direction of whoever is holding the wrench. This is the one instruction on this page we would ask you to read twice.
Unplug the opener at the ceiling outlet. Not the wall button, the plug. Anyone with a remote in a pocket can otherwise put a one-cable door through another cycle, and that cycle is what turns a cable job into a bent track section and a creased bottom panel.
Do not lift it by hand to get the car out. With one cable gone the load is no longer balanced and the door can twist off the rollers while you are standing under it. If a vehicle is trapped, tell the dispatcher when you call. That moves the ticket up.
Priced Before We Start.
- Single lift cable replaced: typically $150 to $250
- Both cables replaced as a pair: typically $200 to $350
- Cable plus off-track re-track: typically $250 to $400
- Cable drum or end bearing replaced: quoted on site
We quote the pair by default and tell you why. Written quote before work starts, and the quote you approve is the invoice. The diagnostic is waived with any repair and $50 off any repair applies here too. If the torsion spring let go in the same event, we price the garage door spring replacement on the same visit, which costs less than a second trip. Real numbers for that side of the job are in our garage door spring replacement cost guide.
From your call to a door hanging square again. Five steps.
Call answered live
A real dispatcher answers (912) 209-4079, 24/7. Say the cable snapped or the door is sitting crooked, and mention if a car is trapped. You get an arrival window before you hang up.
Truck rolls your way
Most calls before 2 PM get same-day service across Coastal Georgia and Northeast Florida. Cables, drums, and bottom brackets ride on every truck. We call or text about 30 minutes out.
Door secured, then diagnosed
The tech clamps the door in the track and takes the spring off load before a cable is touched. Then the whole lift system gets walked: cables, drums, set screws, end bearings, bottom brackets, spring, and track.
Written quote, then fixed
You see the price before any work starts. Both cables come off, new galvanized cable goes on, and the drums are re-seated with the same number of wraps on each side so the door lifts level.
Balanced, tuned, tested
Spring tension checked against the door weight, balance tested by hand at waist height, opener force and travel limits reset, photo eyes realigned, and a lubrication pass. The invoice matches the estimate.
Before You Call.
How much does garage door cable repair cost?
Replacing a single lift cable typically runs 150 to 250 dollars. Because cables wear on the same clock, we quote and replace them in pairs, which typically runs 200 to 350. If the door also jumped the track when the cable let go, off-track repair with cable replacement typically runs 250 to 400. You get a written quote before any work starts, the diagnostic is waived with the repair, and 50 dollars off any repair applies.
Can I fix a garage door cable myself?
We strongly recommend against it. The cable is anchored to the bottom bracket at the corner of the door, and that bracket carries the full lifting force of the torsion spring even when the door is closed. Loosening those two bolts with the spring wound is the single most dangerous thing a homeowner can do to a garage door. The bracket comes off the door under load and it does not come off slowly.
Why did my garage door cable snap?
Almost always corrosion at the bottom of the strand, and on the coast that is the rule rather than the exception. The lower foot of cable sits at floor level where rain blows in and where a wet car drips, so chloride and moisture work into the core of the galvanized strand and rust it from the inside. Other causes are a door that ran down onto an obstruction and let the cable go slack off the drum, a drum set screw that slipped, or a frayed cable that was already failing at the last few strands.
Is it safe to use a garage door with a broken cable?
No. With one cable gone the spring still lifts on the side that is intact, so the door racks diagonally, binds in the track, and usually jumps the rail on the next cycle. Stop using it. Unplug the opener at the ceiling outlet so nobody can send it through another cycle with a remote, keep cars and people out from under the door, and call.
Should both garage door cables be replaced at the same time?
Yes, and we quote them that way. Both cables were installed on the same day, carried the same number of cycles, and sat in the same salt air. If one failed, the other is on the same clock and is usually already frayed where it wraps the drum. Replacing one and leaving the other means paying the trip charge twice, and the second failure will not wait long.
How long does garage door cable replacement take?
A straightforward pair replacement is usually done inside an hour. Cables, drums, and bottom brackets ride on every truck, so most cable calls across Coastal Georgia and Northeast Florida are finished in the same visit. It takes longer when the door also came off the track, when a drum has to be swapped, or when the torsion spring failed at the same time and has to be replaced before the cables can be tensioned.
The Failure Starts at the Floor.
Galvanized cable is rated for the load, not for the environment. Inland, a set of lift cables is a fifteen-year part. Between Brunswick and Fernandina Beach we replace them closer to eight, and the wear is never spread evenly along the strand. It is concentrated in the bottom twelve inches, because that is the section that sits at slab level where wind-driven rain reaches, where a car dripping off Torras Causeway leaves salt water on the concrete, and where the bottom bracket traps moisture against the fitting. The zinc goes first, then the outer wires, then the core. By the time you can see whiskers, the cable has already lost most of its strength.
Two habits buy back years. Rinse the bottom foot of both cables and both brackets with fresh water a few times a year, the same rinse you would give outdoor hardware after a storm. And have the cables inspected annually, which is one of the twenty-two checks on a garage door maintenance visit. A cable caught while it is fraying is a scheduled hour. A cable caught after it parts usually brings the track, a roller, and sometimes the bottom panel with it. The same salt that eats the cable is working on the rollers, hinges, and springs beside it, so nothing found at the drum is ever found alone.
Same trucks. Twenty-four cities.
garage door cable repair in Brunswick · garage door cable repair in St. Simons Island · garage door cable repair in Jekyll Island · garage door cable repair in Sea Island · garage door cable repair in Darien · garage door cable repair in Savannah · garage door cable repair in Pooler · garage door cable repair in Richmond Hill · garage door cable repair in Kingsland · garage door cable repair in St. Marys · garage door cable repair in Waycross · garage door cable repair in Fernandina Beach · garage door cable repair in Jacksonville · see every service area
Cable Snapped? Unplug the Opener and Call.
Same-day across Coastal Georgia and Northeast Florida. Written quote before work. $50 OFF any repair.
Call (912) 209-4079