Garage Door Opener

[Eneto-55]

I have a situation with the garage door opener at the shop I lease.  I cannot just take it out & make it manual, due to the rental agreement.

 

The deal is that it stalls when lifting the door, and it's getting worse.  It just sits there & buzzes until I stop it, and then go help it up while activating the remote. I have checked over the track & door rollers, etc, and everything appears to be in order - not binding anywhere. 

 

I have been searching for a new one on-line, but find that the old style ones with the dip switches that can easily be set to a new code are apparently no longer available.  What's the deal with this nonsense about putting everything on the internet or on a smart phone?! Does anyone here know if you can connect the old style controller to a newer garage door opener?  (I'm not against using technology where it is needed, but in my opinion this is crazy.)  The one that is currently installed is some brand that has apparently sold out twice since this one was made, so I'm guessing it's pretty old.  Looking at Genie & Chamberlain so far.  Any recommendations?

[Merle Coggins]

Are you sure you don’t have a bad spring, or binding track? Can you temporarily disconnect the door opener to check the movement of the door? You should be able to lift it with little effort if everything is working properly. 

[Eneto-55]

Yes, I have released the connection to the opener power track, and it goes up easily.  (It's just a single door, 7' high.)  At first I thought it was catching on the track rails, so I lubed it, and the rollers.  I also greased the T-rail power track.  (It is a chain drive style.)  I did consider tightening the spring tension, but it doesn't seem heavy lifting it by hand, and it also looks pretty tightly wound when the door is down, so I think the motor is just getting weak.

 

I read a bunch of stuff about the the issues with the multi-section main rails that come in 3 or 4 pieces, and no one seems overly impressed with them, but I cannot find a lower price range one with the one-piece main rail, and since this brand doesn't even exist anymore, I don't think I could re-use the old T-rail.

 

Maybe I'm just trying to save too much money.  My wife says "Just call the garage door installers", but that's her answer to a lot of things, except the things SHE wants to do herself.

[Sniper]

You can run the door all the way open, disconnect the opener from the door and use it like a manual door.  That way the opener isn't removed, but it's not in the way.   As for a new opener, they make them without the need for internet connection, but I don;t think anyone makes the old style dip switch units anymore.

 

But I have a question, why is it you are having to deal with this?  It's a rental, seems to me permanently installed stuff is the owner's problem. 

 

 

[ggdad1951]

The opener itself likely has a sensor that is tracking the force needed to open the door.  This sensor system can go bad. Garage openers do go bad.

 

As Sniper says, it's a RENTAL, not YOUR problem, but the owners.

[kencombs]

To check spring adj disconnect the opener from the door    Manually raise the door about half way.   It should stay there.   If not    It needs to be adjusted.   If it does the opener may need it’s up and down force adjusted.   Without more info I can’t help with how to do that.  Most have a couple of dial type pots under the cover.     But since the motor is trying to lift I’d bet on spring setting. 

[Dodgeb4ya]

It might be the door opener that's failing.

If the lease doesn't say the renter is to maintain it call the landlord.

Edited October 6, 2021 by Dodgeb4ya

[Eneto-55]

Thanks all.  Yeah, it's a rental, but I didn't tell the whole story.  It belongs to an LLC owned by my wife's family.  When I started my one-man business (really just created a job for myself, when I couldn't find work anywhere in the area) they gave me a pretty decent rental rate.  I raised it on my own a couple of times over the years (I've been working out of there about 10 years now), but it's still below what they could get from someone else now.  Of course, if you've ever owned a rental, or managed one, you will know that having a long-term renter is lots better than a lot of turn over, when you have to go in and paint, fix everything, etc.  (It's actually an apartment.)

 

So, back to the garage door opener.  This morning I helped it open the door, moved the car out, and decided to just disconnect it until it is fixed.  Then I saw that the motor cover came off with just 4 screws, and I'm that guy who will try anything once.  (I have never messed with one of these before - back home my car always sat outside, and the garage on my folks house was manual, and so were both of the doors on Dad's shop.)  So I removed the cover, and it wasn't some sort of direct drive as I expected.  The belt was so shredded that it was almost severed - just some threads at one spot, actually.  So I replaced the belt, and it's all wonderful again.  I had tried to find info on this unit on-line, but since the company no longer exists, I couldn't find anything about it at all.)

 

But I will say, that I will think more than twice before I ever put one of these new-fangled ones into any building I own myself.  (This is one of those old ones with the dip switches.) 

 

But for sure, thanks to you'all.  I just never figured there was a belt drive inside that case.

[Merle Coggins]

As I saw this thread again I was thinking it may be a bad belt. Then I read your post. Good find. Easy fix. 

[JBNeal]

17 hours ago, Eneto-55 said:

Yes, I have released the connection to the opener power track, and it goes up easily...I did consider tightening the spring tension, but it doesn't seem heavy lifting it by hand, and it also looks pretty tightly wound when the door is down, so I think the motor is just getting weak.

Definitely check to see if the door is balanced with the halfway open test.  If the door is not balanced, then the opener will not work properly and could wear prematurely.  Properly balanced doors require very little effort to open or close.

 

This summer, I serviced my neighbors metal building with 12' doors as both openers were on the fritz and the garage door guys never would show up for their appointments after 6 months of rescheduling.  Doors were not balanced, one opener fried a belt, the other opener fried the receiver.  Both had the torsion springs, so I sucked it up, cut some scrap rebar for spring tools and got everything balanced.  Replaced failing parts, reprogrammed transmitters, and he was back in business a day later.  He commented how quiet the openers were nowadays, before they hummed fairly loudly, he thought that I must have "tuned up" them electric drive motors

[Eneto-55]

16 hours ago, JBNeal said:

Definitely check to see if the door is balanced with the halfway open test.  If the door is not balanced, then the opener will not work properly and could wear prematurely.  Properly balanced doors require very little effort to open or close.

 

This summer, I serviced my neighbors metal building with 12' doors as both openers were on the fritz and the garage door guys never would show up for their appointments after 6 months of rescheduling.  Doors were not balanced, one opener fried a belt, the other opener fried the receiver.  Both had the torsion springs, so I sucked it up, cut some scrap rebar for spring tools and got everything balanced.  Replaced failing parts, reprogrammed transmitters, and he was back in business a day later.  He commented how quiet the openers were nowadays, before they hummed fairly loudly, he thought that I must have "tuned up" them electric drive motors

I assume that what you mean by "balanced" is having the same amount of tension on both springs of a two spring door.  Our 16' door at our home has two like that, but this one is just a single spring.  (We've had to replace a broken spring on the 16' door here at home already twice in 18 years, and they always say they need to replace both, the unbroken one as well.  I imagine that is so that the door has equal lift on both sides?  And, yes, we let them do it that way.)

[Tooljunkie]

Balanced is where the spring is tight enough to aid with lifting door but not so tight door wont close on its own. 

[JBNeal]

On extension spring installations, the springs need to have the same amount of tension on them so they exert the same amount of force to both sides of the door.  A single torsion spring can be used instead of the 2 extension springs, but that requires different brackets, hardware, and mounting to the structure.

 

A balanced door has enough tension on the springs (extension or torsion) so that when the door is halfway opened, it stays in that halfway position.  Too much tension, and the door wants to stay open; too little tension, and the door wants to stay closed...either condition causes the opener to struggle to operate, leading to premature wear.  A balanced door takes very little effort to open or close, allowing the opener to use little energy to operate, as the springs are carrying the load of the door, not the opener mechanism.

 

Once the door is balanced, then the opener upforce and downforce can be adjusted so that it operates adequately.  If these two adjustments are off, the thermal breakers for the electric motor can trip because too much current is being drawn to operate. 

Edited October 8, 2021 by JBNeal
autocorrect malfunction