Electric Up and Over Garage Doors
Most up and over canopy doors can be easily automated using a good quality traditional boom type electric operator. You do however need a canopy bow arm converter kit which in principal applies forces to the top and lower part of the door panel in order to open the door successfully. If you go to your canopy door right now and from the inside grab the top and middle of the panel and pull the door backwards you will find the door opens about 2/3rds of the way with your pulling force and then sticks. The final opening movement requires a gentle push from the lower half of the door panel and this is what the bow arm converter does.
The bow arm converter is exactly as described in that it is like a bow part from a bow and arrow set, only made from steel. (see picture to the left)
The flat part of this device installs directly onto the back of the door panel centrally and then the garage door operator towing arm fits to a sliding mechanism on the curved part of the converter. As the canopy door opens the slider moves up the bow arm and a force is gently applied lower down to open the door fully. The closing cycle is obviously in reverse.
We have fitted hundreds of these over the 23 years and they all work fine. The only proviso we apply with an existing garage door is that it is working smoothly and the door panel is strong enough overall to take the bow arm forces. Some older door panels in steel and GRP are not strong enough to take these converters and have far too much flex in the panel construction.
Many websites will tell you not to use canopy converters and to change doors to retractable systems or use the Cardale Autoglide system (which only works on most Cardale doors!), this is nonsense and the best thing about a bow arm converter is that it drives the door panel directly so does not rely on super fine tuned springing systems as the Cardale Autoglide does as it lifts from one side only. The bow arm system also locks the door very positively and securely without the manual latches required.
It is important to use a reasonably powerful and high quality boom operator with a bow arm converter as there are a lot more forces involved and in order for the safety reverse sytem to work properly the door needs to be working smoothly before installation.
The only downside perhaps to a bow arm converter is the loss of drivethrough clearance on the headroom when the door is open. However, remember you have retained all the drivethrough width, which would not be the case if installing a fully retractable garage door as the lifting arms would sit inbetween the sub frame reducing the width when open. The loss of headroom depends on the make of bow arm used but is generally about 100 -150mm and is only in the middle.
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A typical conversion bow arm kit for most canopy type up and over one piece doors with adjustment for adapting to different door heights and operator towing arms.
The only canopy doors that can be a problem to fix this converter system to are doors that have vertical strengthening struts on the inside of the panel and therfore no horizontal struts to fix to between the top of the door and the middle section. This can be overcome with extra steel struts fitted across the door but beware of the extra weight being added.
The definition of a canopy garage door system can sometimes get a little confusing as there are many older garage doors still in operation that seem to be canopy type doors as they do not have horizontally  positioned roller tracks or have shorter roller tracks still making the door panel protrude a third when open. The best definition is that a canopy one piece up and over garage door is any door with a torsion spring directly above the door panel and vertical side guides for the rollers at each side. There are still many double width older garage doors with spring systems across the middle of the door or double width doors with springs above the door but for remote control electric operation apply the simple rule of only making canopy garage doors up to 8 feet (2438mm) wide electrically operated.
Remember all canopy garage doors manufactured today are only available up to 8 feet wide (2438mm) and above that width they are all using retractable operating gear. Also remember canopy garage doors always give you the full width drive through when open and have no obstructions at the side which is one of the main reasons for using a canopy door when the door size is only 7 feet (2134mm) wide. You will usually need all of the width at this size to be able to use the door opening for a normal modern car to drive through without catching wingmirrors or door panels.
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