How to Remove a Garage Door

Note that at this point the garage door springs are at maximum tension and thus it is extremely important to not disconnect the garage door springs or torsion rod without proper preparation to ensure the springs or cables do not inadvertently fly off. If they do, severe injury is possible.

Start by removing the top section of the garage door. Remove the brackets and then simply lift the top section of the garage door off. When you lift up on the first section of garage door the remaining sections of the garage door will rise up a bit due to the springs pulling up a now lighter load. At this point you can work at disconnecting the garage door springs and or torsion rod wires.

With the wires that hold the springs / torsion rod wire taught, simply clamp onto them with a couple of pair of vice grips so that you can disconnect the cables from the bottom section of the garage door. Note that when you disconnect the cables from the bottom section of the garage door the top portions of the cable and springs are still under tension.

With the particular garage door that I removed, I then used a couple of large screw drivers to effectively ratchet off the tension in the torsion rod. As I lifted off the tension a bit with a screwdriver, I had another person release the vice grips to allow the cables to slide up a few inches.

After removing all of the garage door panels I then took off the garage door side rails.

Next, I removed the garage door torsion rod.

Finally, I removed the top garage door rails to wrap up the project.