Garage door openers

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crw

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I hope this is the right forum for this topic.

I have three garage door openers, each operates a single door. One that came with the house died after 7 years. It was chain drive. Inside the main case, the plastic gears were shredded. It was a Liftmaster.

Two other chain drive openers that I personally installed are still going strong after 10 years.

Meanwhile, I replaced the Liftmaster with a Craftsman 1/2 hp screw drive, which has now died after only three years. I was hoping the screw drive would be more durable, but that hasn't appeared to be the case. I haven't had the time yet to do a diagnosis on this one, but obviously three years is not acceptable to me. The door itself is in good shape. I can open and close it with one finger.

I'm wondering if anyone has insights into garage door opener brands, and differences between chain, screw, and belt-driven models?
 
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I had a Liftmaster, chewed gears after 7 years. I would expect a garage door opener to last at least 15 years unless you put it up and down all day.

John
 
Had been using a Genie in my dad's apartment for 13 years, with 4 residential units and 2 get daily usages. Still runs well. Those were screw drive though.

My 14 year old home also has a Genie screw drive, works fine still, but mom blew it once when trying to open the garage door with the lock on, and shreaded through the plastic door lift.

In law had a Genie also, finally died after I think about 24 years due to first a radio issue, and when father in law try to fix it and put in the motor starter capacity in reverse, boom, it blew up. It was not worth fixing and I helped him put in a new one for $170.

What I see is that the key to a long lasting garage door opener is alignment. You want to make sure the direction the door run is align with the direction of the rail's or chain's travel, or else the angle can chew through any gear or chain quickly.

Then make sure you lube it on a regular basis (mine at least once every year, but my dad always over lube it).
 
Our family has had a couple of Liftmasters with over 20 years service each. One chewed up the gears recently. For about $25 in replacement parts - that are commonly available - the unit was back in service. I like a design that is repairable and not a throwaway.
 
The white plastic driven gear will fail every few years and they are very easy to replace, so you should just replace the gear and the opener will be good for another seven years. The gear is about $25. The instructions that come with the gear tell you to replace the plastic pinion (worm) gear also, but i have found that just replacing the driven gear is enough. The driven gear is made of a soft plastic and the pinion is made of a harder plastic, so there is normally no wear on the pinion. Just lubricate the gears liberally when you change the gear.

I have installed many(about fifteen) Chamberlain belt-driven openers and they have been troublefree.
 
Does your screw drive look like its trying when you hit the button, but it just won't quite turn it?

If so, it may just need lubed. That happened to ours a few weeks ago.
 
Yes, it "tries", then very quickly resorts to the emergency "blinking light".

I will check into the lube... I didn't think it was serviceable, but maybe it is. Any tips on where to apply lube? Within the base unit or along the screw drive?
 
I don't know what its called... But there is an arm that attaches to the door to pull it up and down. The other end of the arm attaches to the screw (the screw goes through it). I loaded up the screw with grease right where it goes through that piece on the end of the arm. In my case, it would move an inch or two, so that was enough for it to work grease into that piece attached to the arm.

That got it working again. Then I put a little grease on the entire length of the screw.
 
WooHoo! It's running again. It might also help that today is about 20 degrees warmer than yesterday. I oiled just about anything that moves. Some things I read said to use oil and not grease, for whatever that's worth (probably quite a bit when it's single digits out there).
 
I have always used the craftsman 1/2 hp chain driven models. They last 10+ years easy. Swap a new drive unit out and then rebuild the broken one for 20% of the price of a new one. Definitely not rocket science. So I have a spare now.

One tip...in very cold weather..make sure your garage door does not freeze and stick to the cement floor if the pavement is wet when you put the car away. The torque overload from the door just breaking loose is enough to break the plactic gears if they are old. I put some ice melter at the base of the door once a week when it is wet.
 
I have had a screw drive Genie on a big heavy 16' door for over 20 years. The sensor that shuts if off when it stalls went bad. It took me a couple of years to figure out what was wrong and about 10 minutes to fix it.
 
pt1 gives a good tip. another one -- the long horizontal tensioner/balance spring is supposed to be "lubed" as well, with spray lubricant - preferably silicone. just spray generously along the length of the spring, and it's supposed to make it last longer. i don't know why, but an opener installer/ repairman told this to me.
 
Genie fan here.

My Dad bought a screw-drive many years ago, replaced it after almost 25 years, not because it was broken, but because he replaced the garage door and figured a new door deserved a new opener.

I've installed one at my townhouse and now at the house, and no problems whatsoever. As far as maintenance, I just go over the screw once a year with Genie's version of Lubriplate and hit the door hinges and spring with a silicone spray and it's good to go. I do have to remember that trick to keep the door itself from freezing to the ground, though; I missed a day of work in December because the Malibu was parked outside, frozen shut after an icy-rain, and I couldn't get the garage door open to try to get the Dakota out until about 2PM -- and even then I had to pry it loose from the concrete with a small shovel before it would open.
 
You will have less trouble with stripped gears, smashed kids, etc. if you keep the clutch adjusted to where it will still open the door, but stop if it hits much.
 
We had the plastic gear in our Craftsman unit fail a year or so ago. We called out a repair guy (we're renting and I didn't want to tear into it or replace it on my own). The guy told me that the plastic gears would basically fail by design, as the sacrificial wear point in the system, in order to prevent damage to the rest of the drive mechanism in case of overloading. I assume he was telling the truth.
 
I wish ours had replaceable plastic gears! We've got an old Model 455 Automatic Door Man. I once hit the button not realizing da missus left the hatch open on the van, in a position that would jamb the garage door. Bzzzzzzz... Rrrrr.. KaPOWW!! clang..clang.. That old opener pulled so hard it ripped the operator/arm right off my fairly new, nice Wayne Dalton door. Tore the heck out of the reinforced bulkhead area on the door. So much for tripping the downforce saftey switch on it. It's there but apparently doesn't work too well! I wound up having to screw a pc of plywood to the door to re-attach the lift arm.

Joel
 
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