Replacing a garage door opener


 
I've done many somewhat major DIY home improvement projects in both homes over the years. New kitchens, built decks, ran 240 electrical, installed new windows, doors, etc...
I rate replacing a garage door opener as one of the worst DIY tasks out there.
Got twin Genie screw drives. They are pretty solid. Parts are readily available. Remote programming works great from both cars(Lexus) and the external remote keypad works fine. I don't care about noise level...it's a garage and screw drives need routine lubrication as do the roller wheels and tracks and sometimes that gets messy...not much of that with belt drives.
 
I ended up with a Genie belt drive from an authorized dealer. I wasn't going to DIY at my age. The tech was great. He was amazed that the unit had lasted so long. I had replaced the door itself about ten years ago with an insulated metal door. He said that the Genie model I had wasn't built for the weight, but handled it. Only took about 40 minutes to remove the old unit and install the new one. That included reprograming my existing two remotes, plus the built in buttons in both the cars, reprograming the outside keypad. I've now got two spare remotes and sensors. He left the old style sensors in place since the contractor who built the house made access to the wall brackets a project unto itself. He even lubed the door rollers which were now louder than the opener. I'm happy overall!
 
DanHoo said:
I replaced my 20+ year old rollers with nylon wheel ball bearing rollers and the door is very quiet.

$15 to $25 and an easy DIY job. Just swap out one at a time and do the bottom rollers with the door fully opened.

I used these:

but there are many choices



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Did the same on my door, and my dad's (when he still had the house) and back when my uncle Mario was alive I did it for him as well
 
Those side mount garage door openers would really be ideal for me if you could hook it up to two doors simultaneously. My garage obviously has two doors instead of one big one.
 
Steve Hoch said:
Those side mount garage door openers would really be ideal for me if you could hook it up to two doors simultaneously. My garage obviously has two doors instead of one big one.
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Would you really want both doors opening at the same time all the time?

I think it could be done. The liftmaster 8500W is setup for left or right install so it has drive bars on both sides.

You would need a second drive coupler ($58.50) and maybe an extension rod and a third coupler and a second power door lock

1705698447029.png 1705698644256.png
 
DanHoo said:
Would you really want both doors opening at the same time all the time?
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Absolutely not. It would have to be able to operate the doors independently for it to be practical. I can't think of a reason why it couldn't be done except for they would want you to buy two openers.
 
Steve Hoch said:
Absolutely not. It would have to be able to operate the doors independently for it to be practical. I can't think of a reason why it couldn't be done except for they would want you to buy two openers.
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The opener has one motor. It can mount on the left hand, or right hand side but both sides turn as one.

I have two; one for each door.

20240119_132041.jpg
 
As much as I can see the attraction of the side mount opener, it does practically nothing for me here. The space/volume overhead occupied by the head & track isn't really usable by anything, and I'd have to relocate power to the door to make it work here. And I'd still have the bearing rails suspended from the ceiling. We don't really consider the noise to be an issue here at all.

I've been hearing some unpleasant things about MyQ & home office automation, in that the APIs have been cut down a lot. I may be wrong.....
 
Headroom and quiet are always something nice. Also nice thing about the internet? You can always find someone to spread some kind of negativity about anything you can name.
 
JKalchik said:
As much as I can see the attraction of the side mount opener, it does practically nothing for me here.
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Made no sense at my mom's house either with a low ceiling and no power near the side of the door, so I went with a traditional style belt drive.

My garage has 14 foot high ceilings so the side mount frees up space over the center of the door for overhead hanging storage. Not having a a six foot drop mount to suspend the opener is also a plus.

JKalchik said:
I've been hearing some unpleasant things about MyQ & home office automation, in that the APIs have been cut down a lot. I may be wrong.....
Click to expand...

The MyQ integration isn't very good. I setup an IFFT integration to simply turn on a separate garage light. It was more hassle than value. They also started charging for the integration and the combination of a few bucks a month for a crappy integration was enough to end it.

The standalone App on my phone works fine.
 
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This was the recent news:

The Chamberlain Group — owners of the MyQ smart garage door controller tech — has announced it’s shut off all “unauthorized access” to its APIs. The move breaks the smart home integrations of thousands of users who relied on platforms such as Homebridge and Home Assistant to do things like shut the garage door when they lock their front door or flash a light if they leave their door open for 10 minutes, or whatever other control or automation they wanted to do with the device they bought and paid for.

www.theverge.com

This smart garage door controller is no longer very smart

MyQ just broke the rest of its smart home integrations.
www.theverge.com www.theverge.com


blog excerpt from home assistant:

This ‘unauthorized usage’ appears to refer to the MyQ integration for Home Assistant which was added to Home Assistant in February, 2017. We have reached out to Chamberlain Group in several ways to see if we can come to an understanding, but we have not received an official response. We can only assume that this means Chamberlain Group has made its decision and will force customers to use only the MyQ app or those of their authorized partners.

You may wonder if Home Assistant could become an authorized partner. In their partner program, the partner companies pay Chamberlain Group for the privilege of letting MyQ owners control their own garage doors. We are open to working together with Chamberlain Group, but as Home Assistant is an open-source project, we cannot pay a partnership fee. Not only is this financially not viable, it also goes against our values. MyQ users should be able to access the devices they paid for and the data they own in any way they want, without a third party having to pay an additional fee.

www.home-assistant.io

Removal of MyQ integration

Why the MyQ integration will be removed in Home Assistant 2023.12
www.home-assistant.io www.home-assistant.io
 
JKalchik said:
As much as I can see the attraction of the side mount opener, it does practically nothing for me here. The space/volume overhead occupied by the head & track isn't really usable by anything, and I'd have to relocate power to the door to make it work here. And I'd still have the bearing rails suspended from the ceiling. We don't really consider the noise to be an issue here at all.

I've been hearing some unpleasant things about MyQ & home office automation, in that the APIs have been cut down a lot. I may be wrong.....
Click to expand...
My neighbor has the sidemount liftmaster also I don't get it either it looks nicer since the door when opened is substantially higher but for what? The power is the issue also you need to run power down to the side lifts which is another expense.
 
DanHoo said:
I replaced my 20+ year old rollers with nylon wheel ball bearing rollers and the door is very quiet.

$15 to $25 and an easy DIY job. Just swap out one at a time and do the bottom rollers with the door fully opened.

I used these:

but there are many choices



Click to expand...
Thanks for the links I never thought about doing that and if it makes the doors more quiet all in and thats an easy DIY.
 
DanHoo said:
This was the recent news:

The Chamberlain Group — owners of the MyQ smart garage door controller tech — has announced it’s shut off all “unauthorized access” to its APIs. The move breaks the smart home integrations of thousands of users who relied on platforms such as Homebridge and Home Assistant to do things like shut the garage door when they lock their front door or flash a light if they leave their door open for 10 minutes, or whatever other control or automation they wanted to do with the device they bought and paid for.

www.theverge.com

This smart garage door controller is no longer very smart

MyQ just broke the rest of its smart home integrations.
www.theverge.com www.theverge.com


blog excerpt from home assistant:

This ‘unauthorized usage’ appears to refer to the MyQ integration for Home Assistant which was added to Home Assistant in February, 2017. We have reached out to Chamberlain Group in several ways to see if we can come to an understanding, but we have not received an official response. We can only assume that this means Chamberlain Group has made its decision and will force customers to use only the MyQ app or those of their authorized partners.

You may wonder if Home Assistant could become an authorized partner. In their partner program, the partner companies pay Chamberlain Group for the privilege of letting MyQ owners control their own garage doors. We are open to working together with Chamberlain Group, but as Home Assistant is an open-source project, we cannot pay a partnership fee. Not only is this financially not viable, it also goes against our values. MyQ users should be able to access the devices they paid for and the data they own in any way they want, without a third party having to pay an additional fee.

www.home-assistant.io

Removal of MyQ integration

Why the MyQ integration will be removed in Home Assistant 2023.12
www.home-assistant.io www.home-assistant.io
Click to expand...
Dan and I don't have a chamberlain opener know people who do what does the ratgdo device or whatever it is seems to be a solution but I have no clue.
 
I'm not big into apps. I prefer the KISS method. Only 8 ft ceiling and straight replacement of existing opener. No wifi, no battery backup and side mounting would have been an issue since there is little space on one side and of course no power anywhere near it. Our son has two Chamberlain chain drives at his house that are louder than the openers we had in the fire station opening 14 ft vertical doors at high speeds.
 
Having a new Liftmaster Side Mount installed on Tuesday. Was gonna try and do myself with a Chamberlain but was helping out my old late friend's son at the house a couple doors away. Snow plow backed his truck right through the overhead door. I met the contractor there (good people I know well), and asked him about replacing my troublesome old Chamberlain belt drive unit. He said as long as I can do it when they replace the door at ol Fred's house he would do the whole job, including giving the door a good "tuneup" and installing a new bottom for it as well. I told him "sold"
 
DanHoo said:
They must build more stout garage doors in your area. Ours or thin metal sectional roll up doors and I'll be a civic running on three cyls could punch out with just a little effort.



I went with a liftmaster 8500W elite and I highly recommend it or one like it. chamberlain and liftmaster are the same company fwiw
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My garage door is a 1 inch or 1 1/4 thick insulated door it is pretty heavy my wife struggles to get it open, when i was showing her how it works when power goes out, i was going to buy a battery back up but went with a Genie whole house power generator instead as food is expensive, and heat and AC are nice when the power goes out.
 
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