Question:
My house was built in 1983 and has a Craftsman garage door opener. It broke
and part of the cable broke off. DH has been able to fix that part of it but
it's still sort of shakey. I think we need a new one - and I am wondering:
1. I assume the door opener we have is as old as the house - so would a new
one fit on the a railings we have now or would we have to install everything
new?
2. How difficult is it to do it yourself.
3. Is one brand easier to install than another? Would it be better to stick
to
Sears brand and hope the new one would use some of the old already installed
system - like those railings - or would we need to start from scratch?
Answer:
-Sears doesn't make garage door openers. They have other companies make them
and put the Craftsman name on the unit. The last time I looked the
Craftsman openers were Chamberlain openers with the Craftsman label. I
replaced my Chamberlain opener two years ago with a Genie. It was a very
easy project that required no special skills or tools. You should be able
to do it in a couple of hours. When you buy the opener it comes with all
the necessary parts. I wouldn't try to re-use the old track mechanism as it
will only save you about 15 minutes and you will have an opener with a 17
year old track that may fail down the line requiring you to replace it
anyway. From what I remember all the openers were nearly identical in the
way they installed.
-Are you talking about the electronic garage door open or the cable that
is attached to the bottom of the door and then goes up to a pulley and
then along the rail back to the spring?
if one of the springs or the cable broke then you just go to a garage
door place and buy two springs at the same time as you never replace
just one spring.... they should be balanced... if you just need a cable
you can get by with replacing just one cable.. they come two in a pack..
i went to home depot and bought two cables, but could not use them as
they were a little too short.... there was not enough cable to thread it
in and have enough to play with... so i went to the place that installed
our garage door about 30 yrs. ago,, they keep an old library type card
catalog with the addresses of the customers and i gave them my address
and they knew exactly what was needed... call around the garage door
places in the yellow pages and see if they have any records like this
and they might be able to tell you exactly what kind of cable you need..
the rails the the rollers go onto to hold the door up were put in when
the door was put in... it seems like later someone put in the electronic
opener as its a sears(probably the home owner as most garage door places
have their own brand of openers and not sears... they buy wholesale and
then install and charge retail and labor..... the rails are still good
unless the spring went flying and hit the rail and damamged it?
