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Post by hereford on Jan 3, 2022 14:23:27 GMT 1
Hello
Our garage door (up and over) is solid wood, very heavy and wider than a normal garage door. As we get older we are finding it more and more difficult to open - Mrs H, being 5' 1" cannot reach to push to the top so that it stays there! We are not DIYers so want to get a firm in to, if that is possible, add a small electrical motor.
Is this possible with a heavy door please? We are asking here in case someone has experience of this before approaching a firm.
We would be very grateful for suggestions and advice. We wish you all a Happy and healthy 2022.
Mr & Mrs H
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ibis
Banned Member
Posts: 1,376
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Post by ibis on Jan 3, 2022 14:37:20 GMT 1
replace it with a same sized metal door... Then motorising will be simple. That is the expensive solution..
The cheaper is to get a strong stick to help with pushing up and a longer piece of string to pull down. Also make sure it is oiled.
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Post by pcpa on Jan 3, 2022 14:58:26 GMT 1
Start with greasing the guide rails, oiling any pivots or pulleys, checking and adjusting any counterbalance springs, be carefull if the counterbalance is an axial torsion sprin on the main shaft, they can spin round with a tremendous force if unclamped.
The above advice is applicable for any garage door before motorising, often you will find you have no need, the door operators are powerfull enough to cope with very heavy doors if they run freely and are counterbalanced, so powerfull that if you dont do the above you will have to run them set to maximum force & they could break something if the door jams.
If you have a canopy door, no horizontal tracks and which projects when open forming a canopy then they are the least suitable for automation, they can be done with a bow arm conversion (I recently threw away a pair of them) but the geometry is not ideal and a lot of force is needed, also they hang down below and can cause head injuries.
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Post by pcpa on Jan 3, 2022 15:01:14 GMT 1
We had a company in our group who started making garage door operators on the Isle of Wight and moved on to gate & barrier automation, when I started on my own I used them as a supplier.
They were called Slave-Dor, the name chosen at the beginning, you can be fairly certain that if they are still around they will have changed their trading name in recent years!!
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FFS
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As usual, in front of my laptop when I'm here
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Post by FFS on Jan 3, 2022 18:59:19 GMT 1
Knowing that a pulley can diminish the force necessary to lift something, what about a pretty basic adaptation like below?
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FFS
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As usual, in front of my laptop when I'm here
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Post by FFS on Jan 3, 2022 19:12:43 GMT 1
Oops, I left out a reference to "pull up cord", hope it's obvious.
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Post by pcpa on Jan 3, 2022 19:43:01 GMT 1
Garage doors are not pivoted like that, if one were then your scheme would need another pulley outside hanging from a skyhook and it would not be able to raise the door to the horizontal, at which point it would fall down again. Where you have shown the pivot point would require the removal of the front part of the garage roof to open and close and would only cover the top half of the opening when closed.
There is no force multiplication in the layout you have drawn.
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FFS
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As usual, in front of my laptop when I'm here
Posts: 2,797
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Post by FFS on Jan 3, 2022 20:06:08 GMT 1
Imagine a raspberry blowing smiley.
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Aardvark
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Living in soggy 22 and still wondering what's going on.
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Post by Aardvark on Jan 4, 2022 12:15:28 GMT 1
And apart from the benefit of your weight pulling downwards instead of up, there is no advantage gained by adding just one pulley. You would need at least two to create a "tackle" that multiplies the force. With the downside that it uses a lot more rope.
I have quite a lot of rope left over from my yacht building days if you want to purchase some.
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Post by hereford on Jan 4, 2022 14:18:03 GMT 1
Thank you for all your thoughts - not easy then!
Oddly the idea of a solid stick to help Mrs H push the door up may well be the most "doable". The door has, on occasion, started coming back down before she could get out of the way and has trapped her inside...
The door is very, very heavy; supplied via the company that made all the windows to the house; but extremely well installed - strong metal bits, that are stabilised by being bolted through 6 inches of concrete that is the floor to a room above - it is a separate building from the house.
We will give this project a bit more thought and perhaps speak to the window company. A metal door as a replacement is not, as far as we are concerned, an option at all for the building.
Thanks again, a Happy New Year to you all.
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Post by pcpa on Jan 4, 2022 17:58:07 GMT 1
Whatever type it is and that is not yet clear, it should be counterbalanced, under no circumstances if it is correctly setup and adjusted should it ever fall under its own weight, not just for the risk of trapping someone but if it can do that then you are having to use a hell of a lot more lifting effort to open the door.
I would say you have no need of motorisation and with the door in its current state it would be the wrong thing to do, it needs the counterbalancing sorted out and then the mechanism greased, oiled & freed off. In that order! Otherwise it will be even more keen to drop down.
As has been said the human body can exert a lot more force pulling down than pushing up, not actually true if you can squat with the load across your shoulders and lift using your leg muscles but in terms of lifting or pulling down agarage door with one or both hands from waist height to above your head down is much easier, that is the reason that it is better and safer to overcounterbalance a door and especially a wallbed or clic clac, sadly people have died while trapped in them.
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Post by Polarengineer on Jan 5, 2022 11:08:27 GMT 1
Up and over garage doors are usually spring balanced and these torsion springs have an adjustable ratcheted cog to tension them. The door can be easily motorized for about €150 see installation manual here leroy Merlin
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Post by hereford on Jan 5, 2022 14:14:04 GMT 1
pcpa: we will look at he counterbalancing as you suggest but I did not mean to say that it crashes down, when the string is pulled it goes down very slowly without crashing at all.
The Leroy Merlin link is interesting but does have a note at the start saying "make sure the door is not too heavy"!!!
many thanks to all.
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Post by Polarengineer on Jan 5, 2022 16:20:59 GMT 1
The Leroy Merlin link is interesting but does have a note at the start saying "make sure the door is not too heavy"!!!
many thanks to all.
If you can raise it so can a motor. Ask at LM, they are usually very helpful.
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Post by pcpa on Jan 5, 2022 17:48:54 GMT 1
It should not go down at all,the counterbalance should give a positive upwards force, when properly counterbalanced the door weight will have no effect on the motorisation other than initial inertia, I very much doubt that you will need the door automated when its properly set up (which it must be before fitting an operator) but you may well choose to do so for convenience.
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