What are some safety precautions to take when working with garage door springs?

Winding and unwinding garage door torsion springs can be a very dangerous activity. There are some basic precautions everyone must take to minimize the risk. You primarily need to protect against the possibility that the winding bars will slip out of your hands while engaged with a wound spring. In this event, the bars will be violently flung down and out.

Firstly, you MUST wear eye protection capable of absorbing a rapid blow from the bars. Second, your body MUST stay clear of the winding bars as you are actively winding or unwinding the springs. We recommend you stand on the outside of the springs entirely. If you're winding the spring on the right side of the door, for example, you'd stand between the winding bars and the garage door tracks on the right (as opposed to in front of the spring itself). This will keep your body clear of the spring should it do something crazy, and mostly out of the way of the winding bars (hands remain exposed, but mostly nothing else).

Some other precautions you can take include the use of a sturdy ladder, a second person to assist and monitor the situation from a safe place, never using tools besides winding bars to wind springs, and keeping all kids and pets away from the garage in case a winding bar gets flung out.