Garage Door Opener Review

Introduction to Garage Door Openers

Few professional reviewers report on garage-door openers. The best is James Dulley, a syndicated columnist, engineer and home improvement expert who provides recommendations, as well as notes on product features, installation tips and a troubleshooting guide at his website. He does, however, charge a small fee for his expertise. Consumer Reports used to have the most comprehensive coverage, but has not revisited garage-door openers in over six years. The last report is now nearly completely out of date and is no longer available online.

Instead, our recommendations are largely based on the opinions of owners of garage-door openers posting at home-improvement forums as well as owner-written ratings posted at Sears.com, Epinions, Amazon.com and HomeDepot.com. While consumers don't typically have experience with many different types of garage-door openers, many user-written reviews reflect months and sometimes years of experience with a particular model, providing an insight that professional reviewers can't match.

Once seen as a luxury, a garage-door opener is now a standard convenience. Although you'll see a variety of brand names on the shelves, three companies make virtually all of the models on the market (which explains why they tend to look similar). Chamberlain makes openers under its own label, as well as Craftsman and LiftMaster models (LiftMaster garage-door openers are available only through professional installers). The Overhead Door Company also has a house brand, in addition to making units under the Genie moniker. Wayne-Dalton makes openers under its own brand.

Reviews for most garage-door openers usually include reports of some defective units, which never work well to begin with or stop working within a few years. The chain-drive Craftsman 53985 (*est. $160) has a high proportion of defective units, as reported by reviewers on Sears.com. Many of the problems arise from the circuit board, which can be replaced but at considerable expense. In addition, many owners find that the unit stops working within a year or two. As one reviewer points out, most of the positive reviews seem based on use of just a few months.