Anyone have a Sommer garage door opener?
One of our original Chamberlain/Liftmaster units failed last Saturday after an 11 year life. Not horrible but the unit was a chain drive and noisy as hell. Also, when I looked at the unit, it became apparent that the whole gear and chain design was not the most elegant engineering solution from a noise, vibration, or ruggedness standpoint. So, after basically never having paid any attention at all to these devices, I was forced to pick a replacement solution.
To add to the fun after Saturday night / Sunday morning we have 44 trees down in my neighborhood from a freak October Nor'easter snow storm. We only lost 16 trees in hurricane Irene. And we've got one of our SUV's in for pads and rotors all the way round. Then yesterday, I got a call from my 86 year old mother's neighbors and the cops in her town letting me know that she took a fall in the middle of the night and was transported to the hospital. 30 stitches to her face.
So, too much stuff going on. I just scrapped the whole research thing and made some decisions. The SUV will sit at the dealer until I have time to go pick it up. In the brief research I did Sunday, it appears there are three types of openers, chain, belt, and screw.
Chains seem to be noisy and inexpensive but proven technology.
Screw drives seem to be quieter, and simpler but apparently have some problems in cold weather.
Belt drives are basically identical to a chain drive with the chain replaced by a metal reinforced rubber/fabric belt as used in cars. They are supposed to be very quiet and aren't much more expensive than chain drive units.
And then I found this Sommer unit from Germany.
Videos
A bit pricey at $500 installed but it looked to be about the simplest design I could find with precisely one moving part. The motor driveshaft walks along a fixed chain that's held under tension by springs. And supposedly the quietest unit on the market with acceleration/deceleration on the start/stop but a bit slower than competing belt designs. And it comes with a lifetime warranty. I went with it. I chose a dedicated local overhead door company and Sommer dealer to do the install. I didn't want to deal with Home Depot/Lowes/Sears outsourced contractors. Hence the $500 price. Figuring I didn't want to be doing this again any time soon, and knowing all the units were 11 years old, I had them replace both our single bay openers that get the most use. And here I sit on Wednesday morning waiting for the installer to finish. Oh well, now our German cars will have German openers.
Anyway, has anyone used one of these Sommer units? Good? Bad? OK?