What will be a reliable opener for heavy duty commercial garage door?
All of the major garage door opener manufacturers produce residential and commercial
grade garage door opener systems. There are a few others out there but not many. I would
rate a manufactures commercial grade equipment pretty much as I would grade their residential
equipment because it seems to be the same in my 15 years of experience.
Commercial grade
garage door openers obviously are made to last longer and absorb more punishment than
residential garage door openers. They are made of higher quality parts for a longer life and
stability when lifting very heavy garage doors on a daily basis. Commercial garage door openers
Come in light duty medium duty and heavy duty grade this all depends on the size and weight of
the commercial garage door it will be lifting they also come with either a chain rail trolley system
or a jack shaft design which attaches to The pole or torsion pole that turns and opens and
closes the garage door.
They also come in three different horse power ratings half horsepower
three quarter horsepower and 1 hp.
You will also need to know what voltage phase that your
property is using, it would be either phase 1 or phase 3. Phase 3 electricity or power applications
are only found in commercial properties such as warehouse and factory type property. phase 3
is of higher voltage and is needed for a heavy machinery that a factory would use. As far as light
or heavy duty they usually come in for classifications and the classification is determined by the
cycles per hour in other words how many times the door goes up and down per hour.
Remembering that one cycle equals the door going up once and down once equals one cycle.
The light duty class opener can handle eight cycles per hour. The medium duty opener can
handle up to 12 cycles per hour. The industrial duty also can handle 12 cycles per hour. And the
heavy industrial duty can handle up to 25 cycles per hour and sometimes even more. All of
the jack shaft style openers have an optional chain hoist, this is a chain that you can pull on to
manually open and close the garage door without using the opener.
This can be critical for a
commercial application, if you lose power or your opener breaks down and you need to open the
door to do business. If a manufacture or company cannot get product in and out of their space,
or that trucks can’t get in and out, then it can render them useless until they get their garage door opener
fixed. The price range for these types of openers can run anywhere from $550 up to $1,200 just for the opener
that does not include installation.
Only a garage door commercial technician
really knows which openers are better than others because they work on them all day long. from
what I’ve heard from people I know in the business Liftmaster seems to be the industry
standard.
