Need a new garage door opener - any suggestions?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Our old garage door opener has been sketchy this winter (not working well when the temperatures were fairly cold), and now the gear holding the chain on has broken altogether. I guess we’re going garage door opener shopping - does anyone have any suggestions? Anything they like/don’t like about their opener? I see they have fancy things like letting you know in the house if your door is open or not, and the security codes are randomized - are these things we need? Is belt driven or chain driven better?

ETA: Forgot to say that our garage is not attached to our house, so our security worries are slightly less.

2

I’ve fixed a couple. Repair parts are most likely available and not expensive. I know, not what you asked, just sayin’.

3

Ours came with the little transmitter/receiver pair to let you know if it’s opened or closed from inside the house. We found it to be really flaky. Our house isn’t very big at all, and it only worked intermittently from the bedroom. The battery also seemed to need to be replaced ridiculously often. I wouldn’t count that feature as a mark against an opener, but I’m not sure how much of a bonus I’d consider it either.

The main feature we gained that I like is the keypad on the outside to open the door. It’s just a transmitter (no wires involved), so I don’t see any reason you couldn’t add one to an existing opener, but we didn’t have one before and it’s very convenient.

I don’t really know about belt vs. chain. Our old opener was a chain driven model, and our new one is belt driven. The new one is much quieter, but also slower. I have no idea how much, if any, of those differences are attributable to the belt drive.

4

Not expensive compared to what? I had to repair one once and just a couple of gears and washers cost over 60 bucks. Almost more cost effective to buy a whole new unit for $150

5

My door was getting ‘sketchy’ in cold / rainy weather as well. I was pricing repair parts when I noticed that the manual referenced an adjustment.

A slight turn of the screwdriver and the door stopped stalling partway up. Felt like a dope :frowning:

6

We install Marantec openers in our custom homes. Main advantage being their very quiet operation.

7

Chamberlain openers are the same as Sears Craftsman openers. Chamberlain makes 'em for Sears.

Other things to know about openers with link to reviews:

http://remodelhomeguide.com/garage-remodel/garage-door-opener/garage-door-opener-decision-guide.html?gclid=COzE5tWG458CFQ7yDAodrXIDHQ

8

NOW you tell us. :smack: :slight_smile:

Nah, we bought our house with the ancient old garage door opener included, but no remotes or manual. We’ll know for the next one.

I was wondering about the open/closed sensor - I couldn’t really see the need for that, but wondered if I was overlooking something. If our garage door is open, about the worst that can happen is someone steals our air compressor and recyclables. I’m not losing sleep over it.

Quieter would be nice, but I’m not too keen on “slower” - it takes long enough already.

What do you use the keypad on the outside of the garage for? When you’re in the alley and you need to come in through the garage? What I’d really like is a man door back there, but we’re not cutting a hole in the garage.

9

Flexible rubber belts on the belt driven ones, eh? I see a problem with that here, with our Canadian winters. I can’t imagine that a rubber belt opener would last as long here as a chain-driven one.

10

Mine was acting up a couple of years ago. When I casually mentioned to a neighbor that I was going to have to replace it, he took a look and found a plastic gear inside it had worn down; ordered a replacement kit from Sears for $20 that came with all sorts of spare parts and very clear instructions. I’m not mechanically adept at all but this was an easy fix that saved some bucks.

11

The belts on my engine have 100,000 miles on them, are ten years old, spin around at ludicrous speeds and take on everything from -10 to 200 plus degree engine temps.

Belts are found driving the wheels on many motorcycles.

I think a belt could handle more openings/closing than you’ll live to see.

Bonus: I would rather have a belt to replace a decade from now than some clunky chain. :eek:

.

12

Hmm, doing more research on the belts, it looks like they are kevlar/rubber, which is good, but some of the temperature ranges I’m seeing don’t go far enough for our conditions here in winter. I guess that will be something we’ll have to check in the model we choose.

13

Well, our garage opens to the front of the house rather than an alley. If it opened to an alley, it probably wouldn’t get used as much.

Mainly I end up using it if I’m doing something outside and need to get something out of the garage. If I’m out front, I probably have the garage door open, but if I’m in back I don’t. The only way into the house from the back is a sliding door which can’t be unlocked from the outside (and has very light colored carpet in front of it, so I need to take my shoes off if I go in that way). So if I need to get into the garage, I have to walk around the house, around the garage, in the front door, through the laundry room and finally get to the button to open the garage from the inside. With the keypad, I cut my walk almost in half. Ok, so maybe I’m lazy :slight_smile:

It’s also handy if you’re outside without a car and want to close the garage door. It eliminates having to go back through the house to get out after closing it from the inside. You can go on walks without having to take a key, because you can get back in through the garage. Similarly, if you forget or can’t find your keys, you can use it to get in that way (good to still have a backup key somewhere in case the power is out, garage door opener is broken, etc., but for the every day case this works well).

We’ve also used it to give temporary access to the house without giving out a copy of the key. For example, we had our master bathroom remodeled a while back. We gave the contractors a time-limited code (different from ours) so they could come and go and we wouldn’t have to worry about extra copies of our key floating around out there. We also let visiting family members get in and out of the house that way.

Admittedly, none of these are Earth shattering improvements in quality of life, but they make things a little nicer.

Regarding the durability of the belt, we haven’t really had ours long enough to know if that’s an issue (I think it’s been about 4-5 years now), but replacing the belt wouldn’t be very hard if it did wear out. I don’t think I’d personally consider that to be a major factor in a residential application (reasonable size door, only cycled a few times a day).

14

Actually you can buy belt-drive, chain-drive or screw-drive.

15

[moderating]
Since the OP is looking for suggestions and opinions, I’ve moved this thread from General Questions to In My Humble Opinion.
[/moderating]

16

I installed one of these three years ago when the chain drive that came with the house died. Works great, even in really cold weather.

I don’t have need for a sensor, as I can see the door from my kitchen window, so I keep one remote in the truck, and the other in the kitchen.

17

You are telling me something I already know, and I am left to believe you have not read this thread or any links that have been posted.

18

I’m seeing screw drives almost universally not recommended for the kind of cold we have here (when you say really cold weather, do you mean Canadian prairies cold? :slight_smile: ).

19

FWIW, here’s the one we have: Amazon.com

If you scroll down on that page, you can also see my review of it from shortly after I installed it. My main criticism in that review – that installation was kind of annoying – is still my only real complaint. It’s continued to work well.

20

I rigged up an open/closed sensor myself for our garage door after my wife left it open a bunch of times. I love it.