Any suggestions, Guys? Looks like my 20 year old garage door opener has about had it. What should I expect to pay for a decent one, installed?

I don't need anything fancy. I just need something reliable. Thanks.

Chamberlain/Liftmaster is the Waste Kang of the industry and the price starts at about $150 for a basic chain drive. If your garage is attached to your house a belt drive is quieter. The independent company I use charges $100 to replace an opener and a little more if it's a new install. If you call Overhead Door Co it will be about $350 so by hustling around you can save maybe $100.

Morning Para,

Ours died a few months ago. I had this installed:

Chamberlain 1.25 Whisper Drive Belt Drive Garage Door Opener with Built-In WiFi Battery Back-Up

Most noticeable differences are how quiet this is (best fed vs. chain) and that the door slows just before closing so that it touches the ground vs. crashing into it.

Door and install were under $500. When I did my research I found my installers will offer a special if you buy the opener from them. A few thoughts...

Literally everyone I have spoken to about this says don't use anything but Chamberlin.

The installers may recommend that you replace the guides that your door goes up/down on and possibly both springs. If you've not replaced them in 20 years, you might as well do that now too. They will fail eventually, and you can probably negotiate a good price if you let them do 'everything'.

Whichever installer you choose, consider taking a look at their ratings on Yelp.

Good luck!

I've had both Sears Craftsman and Genie. Both have worked well, but neither was old enough for me to know how long they last.

A screw transit mechanism is quieter and smoother than a chain transit mechanism, and that is nice.

As a builder I can also reccomend Liftmaster.

We bought a new construction house in Dec 2014 and installed a Genie that caused nothing but problems. I bought the opener for $198 and it was installed by the construction crew at no extra charge.

Instead of paying someone to fix/adjust it for a third time I decided to replace it instead of throwing more money at it this spring when it refused to open again after jamming.

Ended up with Ryobi from Home Depot (This one) it cost a little more, $248 before my 10% veteran discount but I have been very happy with my Ryobi power tools and decided to take a chance.

It has a couple of features I like- uses one of the Ryobi 18v batteries for backup that allows it to work during power outage. Also connects to the house WiFi and send text/email alert when opened or stays open longer than a predefined period of time. I can also open and close using a smartphone app from anywhere I have cell service.

Home Depot also set up installation for me with one of their contractors. Since it was a “replacement” and not a new install the charge was $120.

The install guy says they have been installing a lot of them and like them. He said every time HD gets a new model they (the independent install company) do an in house stress test on them and they have been impressed with the Ryobi. He pointed out the Ryobi track is steel vs aluminum and he believed that was better, even if heavier. I notice the track does not dance around or flex nearly as much as the aluminum one did of the Genie.

It is belt drive and very quiet as well.

Had it for about four months so far and have been very happy with it.

In the house we built a couple of years ago we used Liftmaster and have been happy with them so far.

I installed a Sommer direct drive and I really liked it. It was slower than the LiftMaster it replaced, but much quieter. I like the idea of the battery backup Ryobi.

After 20 years, I'd replace at least the spring and cables. A weak spring will put more stress on the opener.

We have a builder special Liftmaster that has been trouble free for 15+ years. It's a little slow to open but it's been very reliable. So the brand seems good for me.

Friend has the Ryobi and is very happy. I like it -- it's very fast (even with a 2 car door) and quiet. Seemed very reasonably priced as well with some additional features (battery backup, extendable power cord and some such). I'd consider that when it's time.

But I've also been eyeing this wall mounted unit for some time, especially if I can get the door to hug the wall and ceiling more (garage ceiling is about 15')

https://www.liftmaster.com/for...te-series/model-8500

We have Marantec in our house (3 units).
They're not as fast as some others I've seen/used, but they are amazingly quiet.

The unit (don't recall brand) we had in our previous house was right below our daughters' rooms & had a lot of noise/vibration.

A quick Google shows the unit on one of our doors (single car width) at just sub-$400.

I have a Sommer. It's pretty quiet. The chain in the rail is fixed. The motor/arm attaches to the door and the gear rides the chain.
It's a little slow up/down, but that doesn't bother me.

quote:

Originally posted by konata88:
We have a builder special Liftmaster that has been trouble free for 15+ years. It's a little slow to open but it's been very reliable. So the brand seems good for me.

Friend has the Ryobi and is very happy. I like it -- it's very fast (even with a 2 car door) and quiet. Seemed very reasonably priced as well with some additional features (battery backup, extendable power cord and some such). I'd consider that when it's time.

But I've also been eyeing this wall mounted unit for some time, especially if I can get the door to hug the wall and ceiling more (garage ceiling is about 15')

https://www.liftmaster.com/for...te-series/model-8500

I've got the side mount Liftmaster on a 9x18' door and it's a real space saver.

Yup, another LiftMaster recommendation here!

What type of Garage Door Springs do you have....Tension Springs (Qty. 2 - Mounted to the end of the roller track) or a Torsion Spring (Qty. 1 - Mounted on the wall above the Garage Door opening)?

If you've got a Torsion system (and either low ceiling/overhead clearance, or really high clearance), this is REALLY slick opener!

Liftmaster Elite Series - Model 8500

I don't own this model (yet), but I'll be installing a couple as soon as a few higher priority home projects are completed.

I highly recommend the 1/2 HP LiftMaster with the belt drive. The LM at the ex's place is going on 16 years old and its required zero maintenance. I'd highly recommend at least a belt drive set up.

DS and NHR: would love to hear a 'range report' on the LM 8500 wall mount unit someday. Like a 10,000 mile report, pros/cons and experiences after some extended use.

I recommend Chamberlin/Liftmaster belt drive with battery backup.

About 6 months ago I had my local garage door people install the Chamberlain Liftmaster. I can't recall the model number right this moment, I'll get it later.

What I really like: It's belt drive, really quiet and smooth. It has wifi remote through my phone, battery backup is great, the door soft closes, and the overhead light is motion operated, no worrying about turning the light off, or fumbling to turn it on. I like that part. It also has a temperature display on the wall mounted control. Also if I'm wondering if I remembered to close it, I just check it on my phone app and it tells me if it's open or closed, and for how long.

If I am not home and need to let someone in, such as my handyman, I can open it from my phone.

My only beef is the remotes. They work fine but the spring steel is cheesey and doesn't like to stay attached to the remote, it falls off in my car all the time.

All in all, I really like it.

I just had a 25+ year old Liftmaster go on me. It was the gears inside that strip out and a $37 parts kit and a couple hours of my time got it back in working order. Most appliances these days seem to be disposable so I wanted to try to keep the one I had rather than replace with an inferior unit. The fix was relatively easy (with help from youtube). FYI, Liftmaster is the installer version and Chamberlain the consumer version of openers (same company).

quote:

Liftmaster

I've got 3 of them.
Use them on big, heavy, insulated doors.
Never a lick of trouble.

quote:

Originally posted by P250UA5:
We have Marantec in our house (3 units).
They're not as fast as some others I've seen/used, but they are amazingly quiet.

The unit (don't recall brand) we had in our previous house was right below our daughters' rooms & had a lot of noise/vibration.

A quick Google shows the unit on one of our doors (single car width) at just sub-$400.

When we moved into our current house, it came with a Marantec.

I agree they're super quiet.

They're also super adjustable for things like opening speed, how high the door opens, how close to closed the door gets before it slows down, how much it slows down right before it closes, etc.

There are several downsides:

1. It is a huge pain in the ass to adjust all that stuff (of course, you only have to do it once).

2. Marantec uses their own system to secure the remote-to-opener connection (e.g., with the old flip-tiny-switches method, someone could sit down the street in a car and record the signal from your remote and then copy it and open your garage door).

I have no idea how secure the system actually is (they, of course, claim it's better than everyone else's), but it means you have to use expensive Marantec remotes rather than cheap generic ones. Some of the built-in remote systems in some cars also are not compatible (like in my 2011 GMC Yukon XL).

It also is a pain to program the remotes. With other systems you can just get a new remote and link it to the opener. With Marantec, you have to connect the new remote to an existing one with a tiny jumper pin block and push buttons in a specific order to copy the settings from the existing remote to the new one.

If a remote goes missing somewhere and you want to reset the opener's list of remotes that will open it, you have to, first, reset one remote to a fresh random setting, link that one remote with the opener, and then copy that one remote, individually, to all the other remotes.