Helpful Tips for Purchasing a Garage Door Opener
If you are purchasing a new garage door opener there are a few things you should know. The overhead door opener isn’t actually what opens the overhead door, it simply is the motor powered device that starts and directs the opening of your overhead garage door. The springs are the actual power with the use of counter balance that opens the garage door. The motor for the overhead door opener is placed on the ceiling of the garage and it comes with a remote control and keypad. The remote control for the garage door opener is what you keep in your car and the keypad is connected on the outside of your house and your family can use that to open the garage door. There are also some newer styles of remotes for opening the garage door that you can attach to your keychain. That said, we will talk about the types of overhead door opener drive techniques, a look at the motor power that you will need for your garage door opener, safety issues, and discuss a few details and different brands of garage door openers.
Drive Techniques for Garage Door Openers
The most popular garage door opener and probably the best one is the belt drive. It is the quietest, the strongest, and the most expensive of garage openers. The least expensive is the chain drive using a chain on the tracks to open and close the overhead garage door. It is also the noisiest. The screw drive is a garage door opener that uses a drive screw that runs along a threaded steel rod- this garage opener is a good middle of the garage door opener, but louder than a belt drive. The newest garage door opener has a computer controlled drive which operates without a chain or screw and can be placed above the overhead door allowing more free space. These are also called jack shaft motors and are higher priced- and higher quality.
Motor Power for your Overhead Door Opener
Power would involve the force that you need to run your motor. Your options would be: 1/3 HP, 1/2 HP, and 3/4 HP. You would use the 1/3 HP for single doors, the 1/2 HP for double doors, and the 3/4 HP for the heavier garage door. Power is your main ingredient here it should start and stop quietly which would create less wear and tear on your overhead door. The speed at which the garage door opens or closes is not a function of its power as garage doors are designed to close slowly for safety reasons.
Overhead Door Opener Safety
Since 1982 all garage door openers must have a sensor which is an electronic beam which changes the direction of the garage door’s operation when anything or anyone crosses the pathway of the beam while its in downward movement. All garage doors must have a manual release for power outages. All garage door openers today operate with a rolling code which means that every time you open the overhead door, a new code is generated. In the past, there was no code it simply operated at specific frequency that was easy to mimmick. These newer rolling code garage door openers prevent anyone else from stealing your code for your overhead garage door.
Recommended Garage Opener Brands
The parent companies who make the professional models of the overhead door opener is the same company that makes the models which are sold in stores like Home Depot, Lowes, and Sears. However the models that the big stores carry will be less quality and the warranty will not be as good as a professional model. This is because they use cheaper lower quality parts. The price to have your overhead door opener installed professionally will run from $350.00 and up. The best recommended manufactures for garage door openers are Genie and Lift Master which are the only brands that Affordable Garage Door Repairs carries. Because we use only the best, we take pride in being able to give a lifetime warranty on all parts that we install on any garage door repair job.
