Automatic Garage Door Openers are no longer considered a luxury item as days gone by; like the cell phone they are now standard with every home and have many options to consider. Coupled with the garage door opener, today’s door openers are designed with much better technology to make our lives easier. The garage doors are safer and so are the openers. We at Worcester Door Company specialize in installation, repair and service to all types of garage door openers and are impressed by the extent of the improvements made by the industry.
These days the garage door openers are designed with three key safety functions that really work to help prevent injuries and protect your children and pets. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Federal Government requirement that all residential door garage door openers installed have a secondary means of reverse. The standard before this was that the door had to contact you before it would reverse. Today the photo eyes sensor is standard and adopted by most manufacturers. The secondary system is that the door must still contact you in order to reverse and the third safety system is a built-in timer which the door opener learns while in operation. If the other two fails, this one will reverse the door to fully open and then cease to operate. The leader in residential door openers is LiftMaster, and no other company is really even close in comparison to their technology. This is by no means an endorsement for LiftMaster and I do not receive any money for using their name. Their innovation and product availability is far superior to other companies, and their safety record speaks for itself. There are other products on the market that equally open and close the garage door but the dealership network is limited. What this usually means is that you are purchasing an OEM item and you will be almost forced to purchase repair parts and service from that one dealer. LiftMaster has the largest network of dealers who have to compete for your business everyday. This means that the price for the door opener will be a competitive one. The technology for the door opener has evolved so much so that today if you have internet working in your home you can create a log-in account to open and close your door from your smart phone, anywhere that has a connection.
Some of the features of this new technology are:
- Check and close your garage door from any room in the house.
- Controls lights remotely. Turn on lights in your garage, yard, or home with a remote control or smart phone.
- The interior mounted wall control is programmable to close your door after a certain period of time even when you forget to.
- Door openers are now available in four types of drives. They are chain, belt, screw and jackshaft.
1. The Chain Door Opener Mechanism is by far the most popular and affordable opening device. This model uses a chain to move the door.
2. The Belt drive Door Opener Mechanism is considered a quieter design because it uses a rubber belt like a timing belt to open the door.
3. The screw drive is dependable which incorporates a long threaded like shaft housed in an aluminum case.
4. The Jackshaft is rapidly coming more popular because of its design and versatility. It requires less room and is mounted on the side of the door rather than being hung from the ceiling like traditional openers.
Worcester Door Company installs and repairs all the above listed garage Door Openers and we have found that we now have much more versatility and options to provide a much more safe and secure door opener to our customers.
