Let’s see what the balancing system needs to do. The sectional garage door leaf weighs in average 100 – 300 lb, at large industrial garage doors their weight can reach 700 lb and even more. It’s heavy, is it not? And then the mechanism of balancing comes to the aid. There are two kinds, the good old tension springs, and their younger brothers, torsion springs. Let’s consider them in detail.

Tension Springs – as is evident from their name, work on tensile force. Work in pairs, always located on the right and left of the opening, vertically or horizontally. When the garage door sections move downwards, the springs are stretched (they accumulate energy), while moving the cloth upwards, they are compressed (give energy). Springs are always two, more precisely, four, but more on that later. They work independently of each other, driven by each of its rope.

Torsion springs – work on twisting, are located on the shaft, which rotates the drive cable, under the weight of the garage door. It accumulates energy when it falls down (thanks to the force of attraction and old man Newton), while not letting the garage door fall down, and gives this energy when the garage door needs to be lifted up. The shaft with torsion springs is always horizontal, above the opening of the garage door, or in the depth of the room, in case of low ceiling hat room. Torsion springs not only look impressive, but are also able to work with any weight of the garage doors. The fact is that they are selected individually, based on the size of the garage door, the weight of the garage door, and the intensity of use. In the case of very heavy doors, a two-shaft balancing system is used. To transfer torque between shafts, a tensioner chain is used.

Tension springs in terms of requirements for installation and use, favorably differ. It is easy to install, to the curvature of the wall opening they as they are less sensitive, but they work noisily.