Electric Up and Over Garage Doors

Electric Up and Over Garage Doors

Most one piece up and over garage doors can be easily converted into an electrically operated door with a remote control package available from many different manufacturers. Many of these kits can be fitted by the typical DIY enthusiast.
What needs to be carefully considered however is that you are making your garage door into a 'machine' that can be remotely controlled and therefore safety has to be a high priority. The common mistake is thinking you should have an electric motor fitted to your door because it is very heavy. Stop at this point and make sure your garage door is not heavy just because it is either too old or fitted incorrectly in the first place as a motor may well open and close the door but will not be a safe, long term solution.
Of course many garage doors are genuinely heavy to operate, especially large double width doors and motorisation is a good idea to prevent possible shoulder and back injuries, epecially in older people.

The first thing that needs to be established is the type of up and over door that is fitted:

Up and over one piece garage doors come in two forms known either as retractable or canopy, and the type of motorisation kit required will be dependent on which of these two options your door is. There are some odd one piece up and over garage doors in the UK with a strange cantilever system which cannot be automated but these doors would generally be very old now so up for replacement.

Knowing which kind of up and over door requires automating is important because the two options have very different support frames and different operating movements and mechanisms.


A retractable up and over garage door has lifting springs at the side and horizontal guides in which rollers are guided and the door is supported at its four corners during the entire opening and closing motion. This leads to a very smooth and resistance free operation and this in turn means that these retractable doors only require a motor and a belt or chain mechanism to open and close them. The complete retractable motorised system can be fitted in a couple of hours with a simple tool kit, and manual adjustments are kept to a minimum by electronics that recognise the doors opening characteristic and accommodate to them. This means that fine tuning and adjustments are negligible with this kind of door.

A canopy garage door uses a torsion spring above the door panel and vertical guides at the sides for the door rollers and it does not have four constant points of transition contact like a retractable door. This results in canopy doors having a less sophisticated movement than a retractable door and in turn means that they require a much more complex and potentially expensive conversion kit. The conversion of a manual canopy door to motorised operation generally requires contract fitting by a professional installer. A heavier duty electric motor is normally advised for automating the canopy door as the forces required to move it are greater (even though they are only lightweight single doors normally). The use of a 'bow arm canopy converter' is required as well as the normal motor equipment and this device installs to the inside of the door panel and creates the more complex forces required to fully open a canopy door.
Using a cheap, lightweight motor will simply result in either not being able to fully open the door or constant problems with false emergency stopping as the motor thinks it has hit something when in fact it is just the resistance from the door mechanism. (This can also happen with the retractable door)

What to do next....

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