My old garage door opener gave up last Tuesday night in the middle of that cold snap.

I heard a loud grinding noise and it just stopped halfway down. It was a chain drive unit from the late 90s, so I guess it had a good run. I had to manually lock it and finish the job with a new belt drive model over the weekend. What's the average life you all get from an opener in our climate?

3 comments

3 Comments

casey_harris28d ago

Yeah, but in my experience those old motors are usually the first thing to go, not the chain.

sage_ramirez421mo ago

What about the motor itself, not just the drive type? My neighbor's opener had the chain snap but the motor was still good. He just swapped the rail and drive parts. Could be cheaper than a whole new unit if the motor checks out. Those old ones are built like tanks.

ray_miller411mo ago

That's a good point from @sage_ramirez42 about the motor... but how do you even check if it's still good? Mine just makes a loud humming noise and gets hot. Is that a gear problem or a burnt out motor? I'd hate to buy a whole new rail assembly only to find out the motor was shot the whole time.