Best Overhead Doors, as an established garage door repair and sales company for the last 50 years, has seen the advancements in the qualities and features of garage door openers. New technologies are now available that add significant safety, comfort and ease of use to the operation of your garage door.
These newer garage door features include:
- rolling codes and encrypted radio signals to prevent criminal activity
- a timer to close option that integrates with home automation systems
- a keyless entry pad mounted outside for access with a remote
- multiple remotes included with system
- quiet operation to prevent disturbance in the house from the opening and closing of the garage door
- a backup power source so you can still open your garage door when a power outage occurs
- motion detection to activate lights when movement is sensed
- lifetime warrantees
The best technological garage door opener improvements are in areas of safety and noise reduction. Prevention of Injury from a garage door has been improved, and garage door openers are now much quieter although belt drives tend to be quieter than a chain belt.
In purchasing a garage door opener, be sure to evaluate how much power is required for your particular garage door. The opener needs enough power to lift the heaviest doors, 1/2 hp for a standard garage door and 3/4 hp for up to 550 lbs (generally wood garage doors).
A rolling code feature indicates that the code transmitted by the remote to the opener is scrambled with each use to prevent the code from being captured for illegal purposes.
Lights on an opener that turn off automatically after a few minutes provides light for the driver to reach the house entry door without have to travel to the garage lights in the dark.
Some systems have a smartphone app that allows remote control of your garage door when you are away from the house and either need to ensure your garage door is closed, or need to open it for someone needing entry.
New technology now includes side mounted garage door openers to free up ceiling space by mounting between the garage door and the wall.
The online site Top Ten Reviews recommends the following brands of garage door openers:
“The best options are the Chamberlain Premium Whisper Drive, Chamberlain Ultra Quiet and LiftMaster 8550. All of them are trusty garage door openers, but each has different features.
The Chamberlain Premium Whisper Drive is an efficient, reliable garage door opener in every situation. It comes with a backup battery system that will work in a power outage. The Chamberlain Ultra Quiet has a preinstalled timer that will close your garage door automatically. This automatic garage door opener functionality will give you peace of mind, and you won’t have to worry about whether you left the garage door open. The LiftMaster 8550 comes with a 3/4-horsepower motor that can lift heavy doors of all types, from gatehouse to standard sectional doors.
The warranties on these units tend to be quite generous. It’s normal for the motor warranty to extend for the lifetime of your ownership of the opener. However, only the Sommer Direct Drive garage door opener has a lifetime warranty for the motor, lift system and parts, giving it the most generous warranty package of any product in our lineup.”
