Use someone's experience - your guess may not as good as my advice
Garage door openers - many and various can be judged on the four points. You have decided to automate your garage door and - what next? Choose carefully. Selecting an automatic garage door opener raises a few questions.
Here are several important items to consider:
- Motor power - The garage door opener's pulling power
- Security - Keep the rogues out of your home
- Safety - Don't crush the car or the kids
- Reliability - How about one minor fault in 15 years
- Drive system - Never seen a chain break even with the pre-historic 1970 models
- Noise - Quiet as a Dormouse and it's chain driven - Hear It If You Can
- Power consumption - See below
Garage door opener power
If you're looking at the latest designs "Power" is described in 'Newtons'. The DC motors -using low voltage cannot be confused wih mains current motors at 240volts in UK.
These are rated at 700 newtons to 1100 Newtons - plus a few more. So that's easy then. "The larger the door, the larger the power required.
Above all else Safety. Mains installations should be left to qualified electricians. No ifs - No buts. It is illegal (in UK ) to step outside the regulations. Use a licensed electrical contractor for any work on the mains supply. You can - of course - Put the plug into the mains socket.
The rest of the work to be done. If the colour does not match the garage decor? A quick blast from a spray can will soon settle that. Not inside the box - Outside the box only. Yes done that too.
If you are planning to fit your automatic garage door opener then you'll be pleased to know that the list of tools you'd need is delightfully short. If you were to need advice then your supplier should be willingly answer all your technical questions throughout the venture. If this support is not included in the kit then buy your automatic garage door opener from someone else.
Another tool for the day - a second pair of hands. Essential for a first timer. Acting as Duty Monitor and some time helper with installation guide in hands is a great idea.
You'll be better asking advice from someone with more than a slight sniff of experience. If necessary use the phone.
Let's again look at safety. It's important. But the safety standards of yester-year were lazy in operation. Mains motors and mechanical contraptions of 3 or more moving parts were not capable of reacting instantaneously to an obstruction.
If your car was about to be thumped by a slowly closing garage door you would be unlikely to prevent it unless you had a reliable remote control in your hand at the time. You would be writing a substantial cheque to give to the repair shop. You surely would be unable to prevent it happening.
You might think that security is more important than any other factor. Maybe automatic garage doors can leave you susceptible to intruders. That's the wrong choice. Your choice should, in every case, be for a remote control system using the latest technology. "Rolling Code" is the name.
How does Rolling Code Work? Let's keep it simple. You press the button on the remote control and it "says" to the receiver in the control box "HELLO YOU This is ME open the door. Next time I contact you I will say this " secret code" The receiver will only react to the signal sent by this remote control. And so on and so forth.
Is it any wonder that more folk than ever are snapping them up. Automatic garage doors are more popular than ever before. These garage door openers are now at their lowest cost ever offering better security, while adding a little more automation to your daily routine.
Automatic Garage Doors are often thought of as a non essential luxury for only the most wealthy. This certainly used to be true but it's all changed recently. Mainly due to new manufacturers improving and developing less costly openers. We are now aware of the dramatically reduction in cost of garage door automation. people have started to realise that an automatic garage door is affordable.
There are two main ways to make automatic garage doors safer. The first and most obvious is to install a modern system that meets current standards.
All modern automatic garage doors will be designed so as to reverse moving if they find an obstruction. This feature helps to prevent damage to property. If you park your car too close to your automatic garage door, you need the doors to halt before they can put a scratch on your bonnet.
Avoid the more ancient models.
So when the heavens have opened and your about to get a good drenching. A modern garage door opener means that you get only one drenching instead of two drenchings.
What about the running costs? Yes - what about the running costs? How acceptable is negligible?
Himataz
11th March 2011
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