A torsion spring goes with a bang, and the door is suddenly too heavy to lift by hand. The Ottawa branch replaces springs across the city and the towns around it, sized to the door as it hangs today and changed in pairs where the door carries two. The line answers at any hour: (613) 845-9950. Counterbalance, and why the partner spring goes at the same time, works the same way everywhere and is covered on the spring repair page. In Ottawa the first question is usually a different one. On a street of townhouses, whoever lives behind the door is often not the person who pays for the spring.
One home in five is a row house
The 2021 census found 87,045 row houses in the city, 21.4 per cent of all homes, where Ontario as a whole sits at 9.2 per cent. Its sample counts 30,740 households renting a row house here, well over double the 12,500 renting a detached one, even with nearly twice as many detached houses in the city.
On a townhouse, then, start by asking who books the spring. In a rented house a worn-out spring falls to the landlord, and in a condominium the declaration says whether the door is the owner's or the corporation's to repair. The branch books it for whoever that is. Each district's own page says which spring it tends to carry: garage door repair in Orléans, where about 30 per cent of homes are townhouses; garage door repair in Nepean, the oldest housing of the seven; and garage door repair in Kanata, built in waves since the 1960s.
The door that got heavier than its springs
Garaga, whose doors the branch fits, puts a one-car door at 130 pounds or more and a double with windows at up to 350 or more. It holds the spring to a tight match: made for one weight, with no more than 5 per cent of variance, so a spring for a 135-pound door should not be asked to lift 145. Garaga's name for what follows is early failure.
Ottawa adds pounds in its own way. The local advice for a garage with a heated room above it is an insulated door, set out on the Ottawa garage doors page, and it is often heavier than the thin steel door it replaced. Where that door went up on the old springs, where foam boards were glued into a one-layer door to warm the room above, or where a plain panel gave way to one with glass, the springs lift a load no one weighed them for. New springs are sized to the door as it hangs now, and that is the time to ask about a longer-rated one: Garaga notes that springs rated for 25,000 cycles are available.
Nights below minus 25
Garaga also names a cold threshold: where winter regularly dips below minus 25, spring steel can become brittle and snap. The federal climate archive's daily record for Macdonald-Cartier airport shows a night below minus 25 in 7 of the 10 winters from 2016-17 to 2025-26, 10 such nights in 2017-18 alone, and last winter's low of minus 28.0 on 2026-01-24. An unheated detached garage sits near the outdoor reading on such nights, spring and all.
A spring that was already worn is the most likely to quit on a morning like that. Garaga's advice is a check and an oiling twice a year, as overnight frost starts and as it stops, and here the fall check is the one that counts. What a spring is rated for, and what snow and road salt take off it, is in the guide to how long garage door springs last.
Rural Ottawa and towns up to 70 km away
The City's rural land survey puts rural Ottawa at about 2,192 square kilometres holding 26 villages, and its update to June 2024 counted 1,236 homes started there in two years, 640 in Richmond and 246 in Manotick. Beyond the boundary the van goes to Kemptville, about 40 km away, Carleton Place at about 50, Arnprior at about 60 and Perth at about 70.
At that range there is no running back for a different wire, so the spring has to be worked out on the phone. A detached garage or shop door is its own calculation, with its own weight. And a long wait is no argument for winding a spring on your own: the energy wound into it can cause serious injury. Unplug the opener, leave the door alone, and phone.
What to say on the phone
Four facts put the right spring on the van: what has changed on the door since its springs were last replaced; where the spring sits, over the opening or along each track; who owns the door, if the house is rented or a condo unit; and for a detached garage or shed, its width, height and heating. A picture of the spring, sent with the contact form, narrows it further. Repairs are booked same day.
Everything we do in Ottawa · Garage door spring repair: what the job involves
Ottawa branch
- Ottawa
- The van leaves from
- 46 Grenfell Crescent Unit A, Ottawa, ON, K2G 0G4
- Phone
- Hours
- Open 24 hours, seven days
- Brands installed and serviced
- Garaga, Amarr, Stanley, LiftMaster, Chamberlain, Genie
Related
Everything else we repair and install
Every one below has a page of its own, written the same way this one was.
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Garage door sensor repair: the door starts down and reverses, or the opener light blinks. What the photo eyes are telling you, and when it is only alignment.
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Springs, cables, drums, rollers, hinges, brackets, seals and opener parts. What is on the truck, what is matched to the door, and what is not a DIY part.
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A door that will not move, or stops halfway. The check order that tells you whether it is the opener, the springs, the track or ice, before anyone touches it.
Garage door problems in Ottawa
Match the symptom to the cause: a bang and a heavy door, a crooked door, a door that reverses, an opener that hums. Then go to the page that covers that fault.
Garage doors in Ottawa
Steel, aluminium and glass, wood and composite garage doors from Garaga, Amarr and Stanley. What the material, the layers and the insulation actually change.
Garage door installation in Ottawa
Headroom, backroom and track type decide which doors will fit an opening. What an installation involves, and why the springs are sized to the new door.
Garage door replacement in Ottawa
Panel damage, rust at the bottom section, repeated failures and an uninsulated door on a heated garage. The four cases where replacing beats another repair.
Residential garage doors in Ottawa
Raised panel, carriage, flush contemporary and full-view residential garage doors. How the style, the windows and the hardware change the front of a house.
Asked before booking garage door spring repair
Answered for Ottawa, on the number this branch answers.
I rent the house. Should I book the spring myself?
Start with the landlord, in writing, as the Landlord and Tenant Board advises. Its maintenance brochure says a landlord must repair or replace whatever breaks or wears out in ordinary use. A spring that has used up its cycles and snapped is that case; a door a car was reversed into is another conversation. The branch will book it for whoever is paying.
The coils above the door have gone rusty. Does that matter?
It is worth a look before it becomes a break. Garaga lists rust and corrosion, often sped up by winter road salt and slush, among the causes of spring failure, and says constant damp can corrode even well-galvanized steel. A garage the car brings slush into every winter evening, or a shed nobody heats, is that case. Have the coils checked and oiled at the fall visit, and replaced if the check finds them pitted.
A spring broke before dawn. Call now or wait?
Phone now if the door is stuck open, since whatever is in the garage is open with it, or if it is shut on a car someone needs this morning. If it is shut and no car has to come out until later, book it for the day. The line answers around the clock either way. Keep the opener unplugged until the van arrives.
Talk to Protech Garage Doors today
Call (613) 845-9950 at any hour, or email info@protechgarage.ca for a new-door quote with no rush.